Nathan Neuman is a multi-instrumentalist polka musician from Minnesota who is currently in his early 30's and got into the kind of music he's making in his late teens. Even at his current age, he is among the youngest professional players/singers/writers in his genre; but his early prolific output of several albums before turning 25 may make him especially exceptional. Which aspect of Neuman's musical career do you find stranger?

As evidenced by the pandemic-inspired number accompanying the previous question and the one with this question that jests about the vote count in the 2020 US presidential election, Neuman isn't shy about employing polka to subjects in the news. That, too, is unusual for a muscian in his field. Do you enjoy songs about current events, in the present and/or past ?

My initial experience with Neuman's music came from a recordnig that the radio announncer whom I heard play it wasn't coy about his lack of appreciation for it. In 2019, Neuman issued the album Unlikely Polkas, wherein he took the common template of a polka band rearranging popular songs in other genres to possibly theretofore unironic extremes. The song not exactly praised by the radio host in question is Neuman's rendition of Chicago's 1972 hit, "Saturday In The Park." I happen to like Neuman's imaginative arragnement that reconfigures the song into something the band who first recorded it ilkely could not have considered. How about you?

The variety of artists Neuman and his guests take on in Unlikely Polkas is so diverse as to nearly be a potential whiplash hazard. Songs by The Doors, Jackson Browne, The Supremes, Miley Cyrus, Motorhead, and Kelly Clarkson number among the acts to be polka-cized. With one of two renditions of Rihanna's "We Found Love," however, Neuman not only reinterprets musically, but linguistically as well. Actually, it's Polish singer Kasia Staszewska who assays the song; I think the song;s lyrics of hope and affirmation work especially with Staszewska's Eastern European tongue. Do you enjoy hearing songs from your native language in another in which you're not conversant?

An aspect of Nueman';s aristry not quite so ecular to him is his willingness to perform in various etyhnic variations of polka. Advanced polka aficionados should have some facility wth recognizing differences in Polish- and German-American approaches to the musi;c really advanced polka heads may also be able to differeniate betwen certain regional variations of those broader ethnic subgenres. Neuman's family is both German and Polish, so it makes enough sense that he gravitates to both styles. Do you enjoy (and maybe even play) music based in your own ethnic heritage?