Did you hear the one about the accordion player in New York City who left his car unlocked with his prized accordion inside?
He came back and found six more accordions.
Ba-dum-bump! John Gaunt chuckles heartily from behind his desk at Accordions and Keyboards. For a man who has spent the last 60 years infatuated with the most maligned instrument in the world, he still has a good sense of humor. His accordion probably helps.
"It's one of the greatest stress relievers you'd ever want to have," he says.
Gaunt, 68, is the owner of Accordions and Keyboards. Located in a plain Clearwater strip mall, the shop is the largest accordion store in the South, says Gaunt. Over 100 different accordions line the shelves: vintage models from the '30s to the '70s; Italian-made, Chinese-made, Mexican, Slovenian and electronic varieties; women's and children's sizes; squeezeboxes that cost a paycheck, others that cost $15,000.
But the new wave in accordions is Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI), which allows players to hook up the instrument to modules that can make the instrument sound like an eight-piece orchestra or a rock band.
"People have no idea what happened to their accordion," Gaunt says, while playing the classic ballad "Blue Moon."
The problem, he says, isn't finding an accordion that fits; it's finding the people to play them.
"A lot of my customers are in their 70s, 80s, 90s," Gaunt says. "There are a few young people playing but not a lot. It's dying because the people that play them are dying."
He walks to a corkboard on the other side of the store full of photographs of his customers or the occasional celebrities looking proud with their instrument of choice.
"A lot of these people are dead," he says. He points from picture to picture: "Dead. Dead. Dead. The guy with the woman with the banjo? Dead."
Gaunt was 8 years old when he squeezed his first accordion. His uncle returned to New Jersey after World War II with a small practice model from Italy. But he knew only one song; Gaunt applied himself to learning more, mostly polkas and waltzes.
"It just reminded me of happy music," he says. "It really gives you a warm feeling in your heart when you play."
But America's love of the accordion wouldn't last long.
"In the 1950s, every other kid on the block took accordion lessons," he says. "What killed it was two things: the Beatles and Elvis. [Kids] dropped the accordion and picked up guitars."
Gaunt says he stopped playing when he "discovered girls." But 10 years later, Gaunt picked up the instrument again after friends asked him to play a party.
"I played a few songs, and I found out the ladies loved it," he says, his blue eyes beaming from behind thick glasses.
Gaunt, who had a full-time job selling advertising for the St. Petersburg Times, continued to play parties, German events and any other place where people welcomed his squeezing skills. In 1970, after attending an accordion trade show in Miami, he decided to become a part-time dealer. The closest store at that time was in New Jersey.
"Pretty soon I'm selling accordions from music stores throughout the nation," Gaunt says.
After 14 years of selling accordions out of his garage, Gaunt retired from the Times and opened a store off Gulf To Bay Boulevard in 1984. He's been selling accordions full-time ever since.
"It's a fun way to make a living," he says. "You meet a lot of nice people."
Now Gaunt's store is one of the few left in the country. The only accordion dealers that have as much inventory, he says, are located in New Jersey, Arizona and Michigan. He frequently ships overseas as far away as South Korea. He's replaced advertisements in trade magazines with an eBay account.
"Here I'm getting mostly retirees," Gaunt says. "I would like to pass the tradition on."
He's putting much of his hope in teachers like Pat Patterson Jr., who has given lessons to local residents inside Gaunt's store for the last 20 years. Patterson, 47, has been playing the accordion since he was 7. His father, Pat Patterson Sr., was a semi-famous accordion player in the 1950s.
"Whenever they needed an accordion player in an movie, they called him," Patterson says.
Patterson says the Internet is spiking interest in the formerly "uncool" instrument again. He has had more than a few adolescents come in for lessons.
"I think interest is up," he says. "I'm seeing more accordion sales than I did 20 years ago."
Much of that growth is happening in other countries. In fact, there are more accordion players in China than in the rest of the world combined. Many of the popular accordions sold these days are built in China, like the popular German brand Hohner.
In Sweden, popular folk metal band Korpiklanni uses the accordion on many of their tracks. Montreal-based indie rockers Arcade Fire play the accordion live and on albums. San Francisco even made the accordion its official instrument.
"I've never heard of it in hip-hop," Gaunt says. "But I'm sure there's somebody out there talented enough to do it."
But one question was still nagging me: Do accordions really attract the ladies?
Gaunt stands up suddenly.
"Yes," he answers. "Do you know why?"
I shake my head.
"I'll show you," he says and leads me to the back of the store. He points to a rack holding a T-shirt and a hat with an accordion printed on the front of both.
The caption reads: "Accordion players squeeze better."
This article appears in Aug 15-21, 2007.