Stinson Behlen (1917-2004)

[Stephen Mills]

Stinson Behlen’s name may not be well known today to many concertina players, but on this side of the Atlantic, before Carroll, Edgley, Herrington, Morse and Tedrow, there was Stinson R. Behlen, a maker of accordion-reeded instruments from his shop Southern Highland Accordions (later Southern Highland Dulcimers) in the small West Texas town of Slaton.

 

Stinson R. Behlen, who died last year at 88, was probably most familiar to concertina players as a regular contributor to Concertina & Squeezebox magazine. His column, “The Bailin’ Wire”, covered a wide range of squeezebox-related items, often with a subtle hint from the editors that various colorful comments may have been edited a bit. At one point, he was making a unique A/A# concertina as well as other unusual designs, including a piano-style keyboard (initially unaware, perhaps, of the George Jones predecessor). I wonder how many other almost unknown people there have been working outside the UK in areas such as Australia, South Africa, and the western U.S, keeping traditions alive (or making their own) in concertina-sparse places and times.

 

Behlen was well-known as a master luthier who made not only accordions and concertinas, but also mountain and hammered dulcimers, fiddles and guitars. His daughter recounts how at home she would field business calls from the likes of Lee Greenwood, and how she came home one day to find her father and Willie Nelson chatting away on the couch. The Dixie Chicks bought dulcimers from him.

 

Behlen became interested in accordions early; he once said in an interview that “I would go out behind the barn to practice and my father told me not to come in until I learned something.” His daughter reports that “he was stationed in Scotland and Ireland during the war, never seeing any action. He toured accordion factories in Austria and Germany in his spare time while the other soldiers were off chasing women.”

 

His son and daughter each own one of his last two free reed instruments, the Cajun Queen model, pictured below along with one of his fiddles and dulcimers.

 

John Townley, a former editor of Concertina & Squeezebox, says:

 

Stinson was one of the great characters of the squeezebox world in the days when there wasn't much intercommunication, especially in the U.S. If he couldn't get it, he invented it and pushed on in a truly frontier American mode. He must have lived to a ripe old age, seemed like he'd been around forever when I first encountered him decades ago. Rest well, squeeze on like new on the other side...

 

C&S's Latin motto "Comprimere in aeternum" really applies here...

 

A new name appears in some of the latter columns, that of Harold Herrington, whom Behlen was helping get started in concertina design and construction of tuning equipment, etc. If you consider that Stinson Behlen helped Harold get started, and Harold in turn helped Frank Edgley, it’s pleasing to believe that his influence continues to reverberate today. Harold has kindly contributed his reminiscences of his friend, which are listed in a dedicated posting below.

 

I would like to gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Melissa Sleeker in furnishing materials for this brief history of her father, Stinson Behlen, as well as Harold and John for their comments.

[Stephen Mills]

Harold Herrington wrote:

 

Stinson Behlen, my old friend

 

I met Stinson Behlen back in the mid 1980's. I was playing banjo every week end with an Irish folk group and got this crazy idea that I would like to take up the concertina. I tried out several of the low end concertinas, made by Bastari or Hohner, and quickly realized that they would not be adequate, even with amplification, for the pubs we played in. It needed to be something with a lusty voice to compete with the background noise. I called Norman Seaton, president of the Texas Accordion Association. He recommended that I call Stinson Behlen in Slaton, Texas. That was the beginning of a long friendly and informative relationship. This would eventually lead to my designing and building my own line of concertinas.

 

Stinson was a tall handsome man, I'm guessing about 6' 3" or more, with big hands and a big smile to match. He was a combat veteran of WW II, serving as a radioman in an infantry line outfit. He was a great musician, accomplished on the piano, diatonic,and button chromatic accordion. He built Cajun one row accordions in the old style, and they were excellent instruments. Stinson also was, in a manner of speaking, a builder of concertinas. I say "in a manner of speaking" because Stinson did not actually build them. They were built to his specifications in Germany, under his name. He also handled several other brands of manufactured accordion reed concertinas. Stinson did repairs on both English as well as accordion reed instruments. From what I understand his repair work was good.

 

Stinson was a treasure trove of information on free reed's and free reed instruments, and for me he was extremely generous in sharing this information. He invited me to Slaton and taught me to tune, and some of the basics of free reed function. He loaned me his rare collection of free reed and accordion books. He showed me some of the tricks on building reed blocks for accordions and Italian style accordion reed concertinas. He had a fine collections of rare books on free reeds and free reed instruments, dealing primarily with accordions and harmoniums. All but one of these was written in a language other than English. I think he had a complete, or near complete, collection of the English "Free Reed" periodicals, as well as publications from Australia. I would love to get my hands on that collection. He also had a complete set of editions of the now defunct "Concertina & Squeezebox", formerly edited by John Townley and later by Joel Cowan. For a number of years Stinson was a contributor to that magazine.

Everything Stinson wrote was written on an old fashioned upright typewriter. He was noted for vigor in his typing, and most of his letters came with the centers of the O's, D's and P's missing. He would bang the keys hard enough to cut the centers out. The insides of the G's and C's would be like a Florida ballot with a hanging "Chad". You could tell when Stinson's blood was up since the prevalence of missing centers and cut-trough's would increase.

 

From time to time Stinson would go on a tear about one thing or another. He agreed with General George Patton that we should have gone ahead and kicked the hell out of the Russian Communist while we had the army and material in Europe to do it. He likewise did not have much love for the Jews, and blamed them for various financial ill's of the world. I did at one time consider pointing out to him that there is fine and upstanding Jewish family in Europe that bears the name Behlen. I thought better of that idea, and it is just as well that I did. I did manage to make Stinson angry with me on several occasions. My sins were more on the order of things I failed to do rather than things I did.

 

The first Christmas after we met I failed to send Stinson a Christmas card. Evidently that really hurt his feelings. We had been corresponding on a regular basis and talking on the phone every week or so. Then there was this period of silence, no cards, no letters, no calls. I finally called him to make sure he was okay. With a little coaxing, he told me he was angry with me because I did not think enough of him to send him a Christmas card. It took about three phone calls to convince him that I did not single him out, and to make him believe me when I told him I did not send Christmas cards to anyone. I told him I would be pleased to hence forth send him a "Christmas letter" in lieu of a Christmas card, or at the very least give him a call on Christmas day. I told him I thought the Christmas Card industry was a contrived and artificial thing and designed to take the place of a personal letter at Christmas. And besides I said, the cards were way over priced. That seemed to satisfy him.

 

Like so many young men returning from the horror of World War II, Stinson developed a drinking problem. It's little wonder, after having seen so much suffering and death, many returning veterans found escape in the bottle. When I met Stinson he had been in A.A. for quite some time. When I went to Slayton for the first time I checked in at the local motel, intending to meet with Stinson the next morning. I took a hot shower, put on fresh clothes, and made myself a Scotch before going out to eat. It was then I heard a knock on the door. I opened the door and there stood Stinson. I invited him in. I knew he was a non-drinker, but caught by surprise had no time to put the bottle out of sight, so as to not offend. We sat on the bed and talked for about thirty minutes, mostly about where we would eat, and what we would do the next day. When we stood to go he pointed at the bottle of Scotch standing next to the TV. He said, "I'm not trying to tell you how to live your life, but don't ever fool yourself into believing that whisky is your friend. It isn't.". I've never forgotten his words.

 

I still have a collection of his letters, most with the O's and D's cut out. I would be please to share copies with anyone that has an interest. I hope that Stinson is happy where he is, and has possibly become friends with the Jewish Behlen's.

 

Harold Herrington

Herrington Concertinas

Rowlett, Texas

Tel & Fax 214-703-0409

Edited July 11, 2005 by Stephen Mills

[Dan Worrall]

Thanks for the posting, Stephen and Harold. I knew Stinson, too, briefly. I visited him in his shop several times when passing through the Texas Panhandle. He was a real original, tough as old boot leather with some rough edges. But he was also very kind and sharing. As Harold says, he was a font of free reed knowledge. I remember once asking a simple question about tuning and getting a one hour discourse on accordion tuning systems...how various ethnic groups (Cajun, Tex-Mex, German, Irish, etc) each had different versions of tremolo; he had homemade tuning charts for all of them. And I too remember the hand typed letters with the centers of the O's missing.

[Bob Tedrow]

Thanks for the posting, Stephen and Harold. I knew Stinson, too, briefly.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Yes, Stinson was a real character. I have a small collection of handtyped letters from him. We corresponded for a couple of years in the early nineties. I used to live in the Texas Panhandle myself, in Pampa and Perryton Texas in the late 50's, so Stinson always tickled me.

 

If I can find them, I will post an image of one of his letters. They appear as little pieces of art when compared with the slick emailed messages of today.

 

 

Bob Tedrow

[Ken_Coles]

I had recently wondered about Mr. Behlen myself, so I appreciate the posts in this thread. Thanks!