How did “Lady of Spain” get to be the stereotypical accordion song? Did a famous accordionist (are there any?) play it first? Or is it just easy to play?
And Amazing Grace on the bagpipes, for that matter.
From this site.
Myron Floren, for those of you who don’t know what Geritol[sup]®[/sup] is, was Lawrence Welk’s favorite accordianist. You can learn more about him here. For some reason, I can’t find a Myron Floren CD with “Lady of Spain” on Amazon.
Star Trek II?
“Amazing Grace”? The cliche bagpipe tune is “Scotland the Brave”. I’d heard that a hundred times or so before I even knew “Amazing Grace” had been arranged for pipes. There’s no obvious reason why either should be so over-exposed; there are lots of other good tunes for pipes.
Speaking as someone who actually likes bagpipe music, the tune I’m tired of is “The Atholl Highlanders”; I never really liked it, and can’t account for its popularity at all unless it’s the fact that you learn this one tune and now can play both a march and a reel, depending on the tempo you use.
Specifically, in 1972 the Pipes and Drums and Military Band of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards had a Top 40 hit with this tune. Wikipedia says it reached Number 1 in the UK and Austrailia, but I heard it played on our rock/pop stations in Albuquerque, NM. The folk revival had something to do with the popularity of the song, but the Royal Scots Dragoon nailed it something powerful.
Oh. And,
Welcome to hell, here’s your accordian 
Back in prehistory (1931 to be specific), Lady of Spain was actually a current pop tune - a British one. The hit record of it was by Ray Noble’s Orchestra and contained not the slightest gasp of accordion.