Kay's first instrument was the accordion!

  During the time Kay was taking courses for a teaching certificate and then again for a period after graduation, Kay supported herself by giving piano lessons. But she hadn't grown up with a piano in the home; her keyboard skills came from a piano accordion which sat in her family's living room. The instrument belonged to Kay's cousin, with whom (along with Kay's sister) Kay sang in a girl-trio on the radio for fifteen minutes twice a week. The cousin came to town in the fuel-oil delivery truck her father drove as his job, and there was no room for the squeezebox in the cab of the truck, so it was left with Kay's family between radio performances. Kay taught herself to play it by using sheet music meant for the Hawaiian guitar. "It had diagrams for tuning," said Kay. "And it gave the notes for the guitar and then arrows when to the piano keys. I went backwards, and learned the guitar songs off the radio, and then matched the notes up to the piano."

Here's famed accordionist Charles Magnante, playing decades later in another radio studio, with his trio.