- 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.
- It's a 1, 2, 3...
- Some bars have of a jukebox full of 45s.
[yodeling]
- This one plays the greatest hits...
* *
of 1945.
[yodeling]
* *
- 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.
[chuckes]
- 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.
*
- She'd cut her teeth learning the 6-sided harmonica.
* *
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.
*
- I think I got the wrong key.
[laugher]
When I got the harmonica, then everybody comes in.
"I want to hear that harmonica and I want to see it."
Okay.
* *
- Five decades later, they're still coming in.
On this night,
friends and family gathered for a celebration
of Jump River's premier performer.
*
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.
* *