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- Narrator: It's Thursday night
and the town of Jump River is jumping.
- Hi, PBS.
- Piotrowski's Bar is the place to be.
There's a big crowd,
[Slam] cold beverages,
and the hottest act in town.
- Cindy Piotrowski: It's a 1, 2, 3...
- Some bars have of a jukebox full of 45s.
[Yodeling]
- This one plays the greatest hits...
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of 1945.
[Yodeling along with piano tunes]
- Ninety-three-year-old Cindy Piotrowski owns this bar.
[Laughs]
She was raised in a family of musicians.
- When something came up
or I watched somebody else do something,
I was going to try it. [Chuckles]
- That includes learning how to yodel.
? [Yodeling] ?
- We got home, I said to mom,
"Just what do you do to yodel?"
Well, she said, "You take a note...
"and you throw it."
Yeah, how far?
- Cindy figured it out and taught her sister Helen.
They join up with a friend
to form a country and western group.
- Happy Harmonizers.
- In the 1940s, the Happy Harmonizers
played dances and banquets across the state.
The names and faces changed, but the music didn't.
- We enjoyed the music, yeah.
Played at a drop of a hat.
[Chuckles]
- The group dissolved.
And Cindy's music career was put on hold.
Her big comeback came in the 1960s
when Cindy and her husband, Jim, bought this bar
in Taylor County.
- 1966, I got here.
- Cindy didn't know much about running a bar,
but she knew how to be an entertainer.
- Oh yeah, I could cut the rug.
[Harmonica music]
- She'd cut her teeth learning the 6-sided harmonica.
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A rare, early 20th-century instrument.
- This plays like a concertina does.
When you blow, you get one note.
When you draw, you get a different note altogether.
- Her harmonica playing made the bar a big draw.
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- I think I got the wrong key. - [Patrons laughing]
- When I got the harmonica, then everybody comes in,
"I want to hear that harmonica and I want to see it."
Okay.
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- Five decades later, they're still coming in.
On this night friends and family gathered for a celebration
of Jump River's premier performer.
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For Cindy, it's been the time of her life.
[Applause]
- The music and meeting the people,
there's so many different kinds of people that come in
and they go away laughing.
[Laughing]
-Sure, New York has Billy Joel.
And Las Vegas has Wayne Newton.
But Jump River is the only place to see Cindy Piotrowski,
the 93-year-old yodeling bar owner.
[Yodeling]
- "Will you yodel for us?"
Oh, sure. [Chuckles]
Just let me get back to the piano.
? [Yodeling with piano music] ?
[Applause]