Fun Bio Facts

Favorite color:
Red

Favorite food:
Rare T-bone steak or kobassa from Karpaty Meats in Winnipeg.

Least liked food:
Raw oysters, tofu, Campbell's chicken noodle soup (Lipton's rules), and Turkish delight...reminds me of a dead jellyfish.

Favorite movie:
The Last Polka with John Candy and Eugene Levy. It is guaranteed to make you smile.

Favorite album:
Buck Owens and his Buckaroos - Live at Carnegie Hall.

Favorite Polka:
Roseanne Polka

Sign:
Gemini (June 13)

Brian Sklar started playing music as a child. He would take the long walk with his fiddle over the North Saskatchewan River bridge on his way to the Academy Presentation of Mary to take fiddle lessons from Sister Gertrude Des Anges in Prince Albert Saskatchewan. At the age of eight, he won a silver medal from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, for achieving the highest score in the province. Five years later, after spending several years with the Prince Albert Concert Orchestra, Sklar shifted gears and became an old-time fiddler, joining the Halldorson Family Orchestra, then forming his own group.

At the age of 19, he went on tour for a year, playing mining towns in northern Ontario and the northern United States. It turned out to be the never-ending tour, which has included performances with virtual all of the legends of the Grand Ol Opry, including an appearance on the world-famous show with his good friend, Jean Shepard, in 2002.

Sklar has a room full of awards from country music associations all over North America. He has, at this writing, done 32 European tours, recorded 29 albums, hosted and/or appeared in over 250 network television shows, played 37 Calgary Stampedes, over 60 telethons, helped raise in excess of ten million dollars for children's charities, has an impressive display in the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame, and most recently was accepted as a member of the Canadian Association of Country Music Legends. As of December 6th, 2007, he can now add the title "Grammy Nominee" to that list of achievements.

Although he is best known as a country entertainer, Brian Sklar has had a long association with polka music. It all started during his childhood years, when he would hang around  in front of the stage at family weddings. Just about every band had an accordion player in those days, and just about every radio and television station programmed live polka music, usually on Saturday afternoons. Groups like the Canadian Polka Kings and the Happy Roamin' Rangers played Cleveland-style polkas, and Sklar was totally taken with the happy stacatto sound of the music.

So it was no surprise when after a night of jamming  in 1976, Sklar suggested that a group of musicians travel to Edmonton to cut an album. The Western Senators were born.

Since 1993, Sklar and his wife Trudy, as well as his two sons, Aaron (a high school teacher and drummer with the Western Senators) and Damon (a music promoter and marketing guru) have lived in Regina, Saskatchewan. Summers are spent playing the Calgary Stampede and then touring Europe. Winters are spent playing one-nighters with his own group, the Tex Pistols (Canada's primo Western Swing and 60s-style Nashville band) and the Western Senators and Walter Ostanek.