Linda Lee is the leader of the Frankenmuth Bavarian Inn Band which is the featured band at the world famous Frankenmuth Bavarian Inn Restaurant in Frankenmuth, Michigan and is also their “goodwill ambassador,” promoting German hospitality wherever she goes. Linda Lee became affiliated with Frankenmuth Bavarian Inn fulltime in 1991. She is affectionately known as “Bavarian Inn’s Linda Lee” where she entertains five days a week.
In addition to her regular Bavarian Inn Schedule, Linda maintains a private schedule, performing at various parties and festivals throughout the United States and Canada.
However, Linda Lee's fondness for accordion music began long before her affiliation with the Bavarian Inn. At the age of seven, she began taking music lessons after her parents purchased her an accordion. Although she wanted a piano, she was told the accordion was smaller and more affordable. She began playing semi-classical music, having never even heard of polka music at the time.
By the age of ten Linda was already playing her accordion at banquets and parties. Upon entering high school, however, she had to briefly put away her accordion when her high school band in Bay City, Michigan, did not have a place for an accordionist. She took clarinet and saxophone lessons in the ninth grade and achieved her goal of first chair during her remaining high school years. Furthermore, her musical talent was so impressive that the band director even made room for her accordion in concerts. It was also at this time that Linda put together her first summer time band which she proudly called "Linda and her Boys."
Linda would have loved to study accordion at the college level but there were no conservatories in the area that specialized in accordion instruction so she became a music major at a local college. Yet, feeling her opportunities were limited, she quickly switched her major to business and began a career as a medical assistant.
When Linda married Roger Brown in 1967, she and her husband moved to their first home in Kawkawlin. After a daughter and son were born, Linda Lee bought a Cordovox (organ/accordion). She then had to figure out how to pay for it. When she was five months pregnant with her third child, she answered an ad for volunteer musicians to play at a local festival in Midland, Michigan. It was there that Julius Blasy, former mayor of Midland, turned her career around on a new note. With Blasy's coaching, Linda Lee formed "Linda Lee and the Golden-Aires." They rehearsed in the mayor's garage and soon began performing 2-3 times every weekend, 50 weeks a year.
When her children got involved in music, they formed yet another band the "Brown Family Singers." The children performed in Kansas, Georgia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Indiana and South Dakota. Their program was a mix of Polish, German, Slovenian and American music. Linda Lee's band accompanied them and they even cut a record. Now, they children are all grown up and have careers of their own, living in various cities in Michigan and Arizona, but still enjoy the music and polka friends that they grew up with during their younger years.
