File photo Johnny Helget of New Ulm entertains Minnesota Music Hall of Fame visitors a day after he was inducted in 2018. He was inducted into the World Concertina Hall of Fame in 2016.

NEW ULM — Local musicians were not short on their glowing descriptions of concertina great Johnny Helget Monday.

“He was a great man. He was the king of the polkas. He was a wonderful entertainer,” said B&L Bar owner Rick Kamm.

Helget, 83, died Friday, May 6, at his home in New Ulm. Funeral arrangements are with Minnesota Valley Funeral Homes.

“He was a really fantastic concertina player and all-around good guy,” said musician and conservation advocate Scott Sparlin. “I played (concertina) with him many times. He was always smiling. He put on a great show. He’d play the concertina behind his head like Jimi Hendrix (played the guitar). He’d crawl across the floor with it. I thought the world of Johnny. He’ll be missed.”

Sparlin said “The New California Polka” was Helget’s song. He brought it back home from his military days.

“Everybody knows that song and plays it in honor of Johnny,” Sparlin said.

Peter Wendinger said he and Helget started playing concertina when they were young kids.

“My folks took us to Hutchinson for about a year to learn from a woman who played piano accordion,” Wendinger said. “Johnny wanted to learn to play concertina and how to teach it. He played by ear and learned to play by notes, too. He had his own style. We learned style from Johnny.

Wendinger said he often met and played with Helget at polka festivals in Gibbon, Bird Island, Ellsworth, Wisconsin, and Durand, Iowa.

Born on the north side of New Ulm, Helget played a button accordion at age 8. He played at bars and wedding receptions in his teens. One of his more popular gigs was at Shorty’s Bar on North Minnesota Street in New Ulm, the night before Polka Days, more than 50 years ago in New Ulm.

“It went all night. It was quite something,” was how Helget described Polka Days in New Ulm.

He traveled far and wide to play polka music including Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, South Dakota and as far away as Fort Ord, California, his former U.S. Army post.

While performing at Fort Ord with a Mexican musician, Helget wrote his favorite and many people’s favorite polka, “The New California Polka.”

Helget did maintenance work at the New Ulm Country Club for 57 years.

Helget’s music and style lives on as his grandson, Nick Stadick, who often played with his grandfather, continues to play concertina.

(Fritz Busch can be emailed at fbusch@nujournal.com.)