-- Professor Steve Balkin
    Roosevelt University

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I just finished "Gypsy Violins"--bravo!

--Professor Helen S. Cambell
   University of Maryland

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I encourage you to acquire a book long overdue when concerning American-Hungarian music.
I was privileged to read the final edited copy before it was submitted for printing, a well-
documented and wonderfully written manuscript entitled, Gypsy Violins.... The author is
Steve Piskor of the Cleveland area. If the name Piskor sounds familiar, the author’s
late father, Julius, was a prominent Gypsy musician in the Northeastern Ohio area. Most
notably, he performed and recorded withthe late Feri Borisz Zenekar. The author
has painstakinglyworked for over a quarter century on this book. Heinitially wanted to write
a short story, but as he traveled and accumulated more information and photographs, he
realized that writing a book would be more appropriate and practical.

Gypsy Violins is divided up by chapters based ongeographical influence. The real
epicenter of American-Hungarian music starts in Braddock, Pa., in 1887 (a year after the founding
 of William Penn Association). Andrew Carnegie needed workers, and the Hungarian/Slovak
population provided the imported labor. Most of thegypsy musicians came from Kassa, Hungary
(now known as Kosice, Slovakia). Piskor also incorporates the Homestead area in this
chapter as well. If you hail from the Pittsburgh area, Gypsy Violins offers a unique perspective
on American-Magyar life during the first half of the 20th
Century.

As Hungarian immigrants began to appear in other industrial areas of the country, many
more musicians began to arrive from Kassa. Some of the early gypsies moved to
Youngstown, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago and New York.  For many years, Cleveland laid
claim to have had the largest number of Hungarians in the world outside of Budapest. It also
had a large number of gypsy musicians. Several chapters focus on the Forest City and how its
gypsy musicians became backbone of the musical scene.If you want to learn about the
 “Nights In Budapest”or “Bogo Temeto,” or how Henry Ford became a fan and patron to
cimbalom music, read Gypsy Violins.  Gypsy Violins is filled with facts and insights
about how American-Hungarians celebrated their daily lives through Hungarian Gypsy
style music. This book includes scores of archival photographs of funerals, weddings, baptisms,
parades and celebrations. Many of the pictures have never been viewed by the general
public. Also interspersed over the 200-plus pages are historically significant newspaper
articles. One particularly interesting story reports abouta wedding that also is a gypsy
burial for the groom. If musical names such as Udvary, Bátyi, Lacy, Bihari, Jaroka,
Magyari, Dankó, Rabb, Deutsch, Sándor, Bihari, Béla, Rose, Brenkács, Ballog and Horváth
jog your memory of good times of yesteryear, Gypsy Violins is a must have. This month,
Gypsy Violins will be made available to the public. My short synopsis of this great book does
not give justice to its importance. Gypsy Violins is a significant historical document for
anyone who has danced or listened to a csárdás or any other Magyar folk music.
For more information on Gypsy Violins, log onto www. gypsyviolins.com.
This book will be available for purchase through Magyar Marketing, Amazon and Barnes and
Noble.
 --Tibor Check Jr.
    William Penn Life Magazine

Frank Borisz violin, my father Julius Piskor bass,
and my uncle,  George Nagy on accordion

 Get your copy of the book here, click
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/gypsyviolins
  

  Also watch facebook.com/gypsyviolins
Steve Piskor
contact me at gypsyviolins@aol.com