NEBRASKA POLKA: Bobby Mills Orchestra / Farewell to Prague / Soma 1030 / 1955

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Charles and Anna (Siemek) Micek, both children of emigrants from Poland, were erstwhile farmers who later ran a successful hardware store and then a saloon in Columbus, NE. During the 1930s, a number of their twelve children formed a family band under the name of the eldest son, the Karl Micek Orchestra, which was also known as the Kay Mills Orchestra, actively advertising between 1939 and 1942. In 1943, brother Robert debuted the “Bobby Mills Orchestra,” and in 1947 brother Elmer led the “El Mills Orchestra.” A dance at Columbus’ City Auditorium on May 12, 1947, featured “Three bands, Bobby Mills, Kay Mills, El Mills” and “28 Musicians!!”

Bobby played saxophone in his own orchestra, but began with trumpet in the family band, playing a solo at his high school’s commencement when he was a junior, before graduating himself in 1940. After failing the physical examination for military service, and engaging a couple of times as the Bobby Mills Orchestra in 1943, he joined the Clyde McCoy and the Tiny Hill bands as featured sax player, before reviving his own orchestra in 1946. The following year, he married Dorothy Mecek, and of their three children, his two sons, Bobby, Jr, and Ron, joined their father’s band in the 1960s. Billed as “The Sweetest Band in Music Land” the orchestra played “Popular and Bohemian Music,” and during the years 1946-1949 included brothers Leonard (drums) and Elmer (trumpet/vocals), as well as Donald Korinek (saxophone), Harvey Larsen (saxophone), Kenneth Headrick (vocals), Bobby Stransky, Robert Taylor, brothers Edward and Jack Wells, Don Thomas (piano), Don Rogie, Ed Lane, Don Capin, Leonard Iwadnsky, and Paul Kasmaier.

Bobby toured constantly in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s. In 1954, brother Elmer quit the band to return home and play locally with his own orchestra, and in 1957 Bobby and his family settled in Grand Island. There, Bobby learned piano tuning while working at a music store which he ultimately bought and ran for 25 years. While Robert was not known to have legally changed his name, he used the name “Bobby Mills” professionally for the rest of his life, while using a Micek/Mills combination in his personal life.

After his sons joined the ensemble, Bobby’s orchestra became a quartet in the late 1960s, with the three family members joined by trumpeter Norm Sodomka, Jr, a local high school music instructor. (Interestingly, his father, Norm, Sr, had been a member of the Kay Mills Orchestra in 1941!) Bobby played until the mid 1980s when he was slowed by a heart attack and subsequent bypass surgery. Bobby passed away in 1987 while visiting his sister in Colorado. (Norm Sodomka directed posthumous incarnations of the “Bobby Mills Orchestra” at various events before his passing in 2022.)

The Soma Recording Company of Minneapolis, MN, was founded by brothers Amos and Dan Heilicher in 1954, and owned by Amos Heilicher until 1967. [The label name is "Amos" spelled backwards.] The brothers acquired the FM Recording Company, of Hollywood, CA, and many of Soma’s early releases were polka matrices from FM, which had been recorded in 1949 and 1950. Soma’s subsequent catalog included polka, country, Dixieland jazz, and pop, with hits by Bobby Vee, the Fendermen, the Trashmen, and Dave Dudley. Soma was absorbed into Pickwick Records in 1967.

“Farewell to Prague” is also known as “Když jsme opustili Shiner/Prahu” or the “Shiner Song.” Its origins are unclear and it may have actually been written in the USA (see Barton & Novak’s exploration of this in “Czech Songs in Texas”). Adolph Hofner recorded the song in 1942 as “Dis Syme Odpustik Prahu” (Farewell to Prague), and again in 1949 as “Shiner Song,” while still singing the “Prahu” lyric. Joe Patek, whose band was sponsored by the Shiner Brewery, recorded a classic version of the song, also in the late 1940s.

[Farewell to Prague, Bobby Mills, Soma 1030, recorded 1955, matrix BM-1]
The flip side of this disk is Golden Age Waltz: https://youtu.be/fOMBrIgoJCs
Polka Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLj57_HkEA2N2CuWrSxUj4Ca6YXb1_P-ES