When Al Reko started school in 1938 in Crosby, Minnesota, he spoke only Finnish. His father, Kalle (Carl) immigrated from Finland in 1929. His mother, Alice, was the daughter of Finnish immigrants. Alice and Carl ran a dairy-cattle farm, and Carl supplemented the income as a dynamiter in an iron mine.

During World War II, Alice, Carl, Al, and Al's sister Kay moved to San Pedro, California, where Carl operated a tavern. In school and with the Los Angeles Youth Symphony, Al learned to read music and play the clarinet and saxaphone. When he was 12, his father traded a sailer's tavern bill for an accordion. Al eagerly explored this new instrument without benefit of lessons.

Carl came from Ikaalinen - the ancestral home of Viola Turpeinen, a famous Finnish-American accordionist in the 1950's. Viola played for many concerts and dances in Finnish communities across the US. Al taught himself to play by listening to Viola - both in live performances and on records.

After the war, the family returned to Minnesota, to farming, and to mining. Al attended the University of Minnesota - earning a substantial portion of his college tuition by playing in a band. (An interesting bit of trivia: in the band, Al played the saxaphone. His friend, Dick Ojakanas, was the featured accordionist.)

For the next fifteen years, Al played clarinet, saxaphone, and accordion as a hobby. He married Molly Lou Wilson - whom he met in Amarillo, Texas while he was in the Air Force. He began a career in Colorado in a fledgling industry - computer programming. He had three children - Allan Wilson, LouAnne, and Robert Karl.

Al and the family moved back to Minnesota in 1968 with a new job assignment for Control Data Corporation. Not long after that, Al connected with a Twin Cities Finnish Folk Dance Group - the Kisarit - and two Finnish-American musicians, a guitar-playing college student named Oren Tikkanen, and another accordionist, Dennis Halme.

These events inspired Al and rekindled a burning interest in Finnish Folk music. This was the beginning of a passion and an opportunity to develop his own unique accordion style.

Post Script: Al's three children grew up learning the Finnish language and loving Finnish music. LouAnne recalls many nights going to sleep listening to Oren, Dennis, Al, and their friends jamming in the living room. One child, Allan Wilson, and one grandson, Allan Michael, also learned the accordion. Allan Wilson died in May, 2001, but not before he caught his mom totally by surprise - he played the accordion within her earshot, but out of her sight, and she thought it was Al. Another grandson, Richard, now nearly 14 and skilled on several other instruments, is beginning accordion. All the grandchildren prize their own copies of Al's CDs, which they enjoy almost as much as the pop stars of 2005.









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