The Main Squeeze

"Time is waning," Wise says. "The accordion is hanging by a thread." The instrument's downward spiral in the American music scene over several decades is especially painful for someone who remembers its once vaunted status.

"If something is good, it'll come back again," Wise says. "If we could just live long enough, we'd see the cyclical nature of so many things. The seasons, we count on them every year. But with something like music or trends, it may be a 35-year cycle."

After a moment, Wise says, "Most of us don't get to see too many 35-year cycles."

In a "Far Side" cartoon, departed souls stand in line at two gates. In the upper panel, an angel says, "Welcome to Heaven . . . here's your harp." The lower panel's devil: "Welcome to Hell . . . here's your accordion."

Wise happens to play both instruments, though the harp is a much more recent pursuit. When Wise sits at his harp, he narrows his eyes, plucks a few heavenly notes from the red C strings and breaks into a boyish grin. "It's a daily discipline," he says. "Every morning, I practice while DeAnn's still in bed. The dog comes in, lies down and just takes it all in."

"Even when he hits a wrong note, it sounds beautiful," says DeAnn Wise, his wife.

Unlike the accordion?

"Well, Dale never hits a wrong note on the accordion," she says.

Wise's fervor toward the accordion is in direct contrast with the level of ridicule it generally receives, but the instrument has not always been seen as a punch line. Although originally conceived in the early 1800s as a device to tune pipe organs, the accordion was quickly embraced as an instrument throughout Europe for its versatility, rich sound and portability. It traveled to the United States with the wave of emigration at the turn of the 20th century and became big business in the 1930s, when immigrant vaudeville performers stole the spotlight with their ornate accordions and fast-flying finger work. It was accordionist Dick Contino who spawned legions of imitators after he made numerous appearances on, and ultimately won, Horace Heidt's "Original Youth Opportunity Program" in the late 1940s.

The program "was like 'American Idol,' only it was on the radio, and you didn't have to be a singer," explains Cheri Thurston, president of the Closet Accordion Players of America. "Dick Contino was this really handsome, hot accordion player who kept winning. He had teenage girls swooning and following him."

The instrument's mainstream popularity soon began its slide, although it remained an enormous influence in zydeco, Cajun and polka music. Thurston attributes the plummet to two factors. "One was 'The Lawrence Welk Show,' which was nerdy, and the accordion was strongly associated with it," she says. "And, two, the advent of rock-and-roll."

"That's what happened to me," says Thurston, who played accordion into high school. "The Beatles came into fashion, and, suddenly, I wasn't cool playing an accordion. I put it in the closet. A lot of people did."