For one-time Celtic, accordion was key to his success

lowell sun ^ | july 3 | peter lucas

[luke1825]

It’s too bad the late Tony Lavelli was not around when the Boston Celtics unveiled their elaborate and sparkling new Auerbach Center practice facility at New Balance World in Brighton the other day. It is named, of course, after Red Auerbach, the late, great Celtics coach. Lavelli, a former Celtic himself, could have entertained the crowd with tunes from his accordion, the way he used to do at Celtic halftimes at the old Boston Garden and at games in other NBA cities all those years ago.

That was back in 1949-1950 when the now storied and championship basketball franchise had just left the Basketball Association of America for the newly formed National Basketball Association

[SamAdams76]

[Cletus.D.Yokel]

Levelli would have laughed.

[Clutch Martin]

and... There’s a story of the two musicians who are on the road and pulled into a diner to catch some dinner before they continued their journey to their next venue. As they got out of the car the vocalist said to the accordionist “should you lock your door?” And the accordion player said “no nobody’s going to steal an accordion” and and the vocalist said “well, I’ve got some things in there that I don’t want to get messed with so I’ll lock the car up for you.” So the vocalist locked the car and they proceeded in and enjoy a platter of burgers and fries and a salad, cup of coffee, and apple pie.

When they came out they noticed that the windows in the back of the car were broken out and the vocalist said “oh my it looks like somebody stole your instrument” as they walked up to the car and looked in the back seat sure enough somebody had broken the windows but instead of one accordion they were now Two.

[Deplorable American1776]

I’d love to have see him play...the Celtics were my team growing up. The NBA was a nice league in the 70s. Now it is a thug league.