Each year in October, a small country town puts on the only accordion festival in Australia.
The accordion was a fixture of the common people of the 19th and 20th century and many genres of accordion music thrived in the home, at social gatherings, at dances and in theatres and town halls, when this free-reed instrument was invented.
The accordion has a special niche in the hearts and minds of the older generation and the rural town of Maclagan in Queensland keeps the accordion music and dance traditions alive with its annual October squeezebox festival.
This book, launched in October 2018, is an anthology of stories by those who love and play accordion music. It is about the transformative powers of the Maclagan Squeezebox Festival in bringing back the emotional binds to the brain of music heard in dance halls of decades past.
The Squeezebox Festival is a winner for the Maclagan community and is cemented firmly in the yearly plans of most visitors.
This festival truly embodies what our small rural communities are all about - resilience, friendship and having as much fun as possible!
Read about the players of the accordion, washboard, lagerphone, fiddle, mandolin and harmonica who attend the annual Maclagan Squeezebox festival. There are lots of stories by spectators, MCs and officials, and pages of interesting snippets by those who have run this festival since 2003.
Book price: $30 includes postage.