Ralph Pezzolo

Italian American accordionist (b. September 8, 1892 in Acereto, Favale di Malvaro, Genova, Italy – d. March 1981 in Yerington, Lyon, Nevada, USA) Pezzolo emigrated to the United States in October 1909. By 1913, he had settled in San Jose, California, where he worked as a shoe maker. In 1917, he worked as a self-employed farmer in Portland, Oregon. By 1920, he had joined his brothers John Pezzolo and Caesar Pezzolo in San Francisco, where all three performed in dance halls. The 1930s and 1940s saw Pezzolo as a music teacher across the bay in Oakland. Later, he and his wife Rose owned Pezzolo's Resort in Loch Lomond, California, where Ralph Pezzolo would play at dances twice a week. Between 1928 and 1929, Ralph Pezzolo recorded several accordion duets with his brother Caesar Pezzolo for Columbia. In the 1920s, he also played with five brothers in a six-piece accordion band, the Fratelli Pezzolo, that toured night clubs all over California.