Bethlehem radio station will ‘roll out the barrel’ three times daily starting tomorrow.

Jolly Joe Timmer loves polka music. And he’s banking on the Lehigh Valley loving it, too.

Timmer, 66 who bought WGPA’s Sunny 1100 AM radio station in Bethlehem almost five years ago, is changing the radio’s format to play polka tunes three times a day Monday through Friday starting tomorrow.

“The polka is a happy dance,” said Timmer, who really is jolly.

Now his listeners in a 50-mile radius including Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton will hear polka tunes from 7-8 a.m. with Bob Wolken, during Timmer’s regular show from 11 a.m. to 1p.m., and from 5-6 p.m. with Frank LaPenna.

Timmer’s mid-day polka show gets the highest ratings of any show on the station, which also plays oldies and contemporary tunes. He’s hoping to boost the station’s overall ratings with the increased polka play.

The station’s ratings for the last quarter of 1996 are at about the midrange of the AM stations, he said.

“I want to be different,” he said. “And if I have to play polka all the time to beat WAEB, I will.”

The idea to change the format was Timmer’s, he said, but an informal on-air survey confirmed his suspicions. His listeners want more polka music.

To say that Timmer doesn’t like polka is like saying nobody does the Chicken Dance at Musikfest.

He has a polka band, he has a polka television show on C-Tec Cable TV 4, he has a polka radio show, owns a polka music store and runs a picnic grove where polka bands perform.

“I love it,” he said with a hearty laugh.

Timmer was listening to polka music as a child when his mother took him to German clubs. He met his wife at a Saturday night polka dance party at the former Lincoln Hotel in Miller Heights.

They call his wife, Dorothy, Jolly Dottie.

Timmer doesn’t reject the possiblility that the radio station may go to an all-polka format.

“It would be a first in the Lehigh Valley,” he said, “There is a station in Wisconsin that did that.”

To polka novices, the Chicken Dance song may come to mind or “Roll Out the Barrel.” But the list of polka songs is endless.

Some have unusual titles such as the “Apple, Peaches Pumpkin Pie Polka,” “Pretty Polly,” “In Heaven There is no Beer” and “Lite Beer Polka.”

But all polka songs don’t have the word “beer” in them. “Who the Hell is Johnny” is a polka song that when played on WGPA ruffled the feathers of some listeners.

The radio station has a collection of about 1,000 albums of polka songs, about a quarter as many compact discs and a handful of audio cassette tapes. Timmer says they play local and regional artists such as Walt Groller and Jimmy Sturr as well as polka music from German bands.

But Timmer isn’t “Too Old to Cut the Mustard,” as the polka song says. He still loves it.

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