The following is from James P. Leary’s liner notes from his LP set of  field recordings, Accordions in the Cutover: Field Recordings of Ethnic Music from Lake Superior’s South Shore, 1989, produced by Northland College, Ashland, Wisconsin.

“An eclectic, trained musician whose repertoire  embraces classical, pop, bluegrass, and FInnish melodies, George was born in 1916 in the Michigan mining town of Painesdale. He learned Finnish tunes from his immigrant father who ‘sang and squeaked the fiddle,’ but he also played the compositions of Sibelius with the Copper County Symphony. A retired teacher, George presently winters in Florida while summering at Copper Harbor on the Keeweenaw peninsula’s northern tip.

      Former rock’n’roller, former leader of an ‘all around U.P. wedding band,’ Oren Tikkanen (b. 1943 in the Copper Country) grew up hearing Finnish music at house parties, from an uncle’s singing, and over Rudy Kemppa’s radio program on WMPL, Hancock. Oren works nowdays as an alcohol abuse counsellor while playing Finnish music with old timers and with his own band, ‘Thimbleberry.'”