The show was originally in black and white. During the 1960s and 1970s, for example, the show played music that was originally by The Beatles, Burt Bacharach and Hal David, The Everly Brothers and Paul Williams and others, but in a style his older viewers would like. The show didn't only play big-band era music. For example, Floren was the band's assistant conductor throughout the whole time the show was broadcast. He paid his regular band members very well, and it was common for them to stay with the band a long time. Welk had very high quality musicians, including accordionist Myron Floren, concert violinist Dick Kesner, guitarist Buddy Merrill, and New Orleans Dixieland clarinetist Pete Fountain. Welk often danced with women from the audience. The songs on the show were mostly popular music standards, polkas, and novelty songs. They were "Nuttin' for Christmas," and Elvis Presley's "Don't Be Cruel." On the Decemshow, the show did play two current songs. Welk's show would rarely play current music, except as a novelty. Welk would also have one song each show where he would play an accordion solo. Rocky Rockwell would usually sing novelty songs. His first Champagne Lady was Jayne Walton Rosen (her real name was Dorothy Jayne Flanagan). The show had a "bubble machine." Whenever the orchestra played a polka or waltz, Welk himself would dance with the band's female singer, called a "Champagne Lady" on the show. The show became a local hit and was picked up by ABC in June 1955. It was broadcast from the Aragon Ballroom in Venice Beach. The same year, he began hosting The Lawrence Welk Show. The album has been out of print for many years. In 1966, his orchestra recorded an album on the Ranwood Records label, with Jazz saxophonist Johnny Hodges, featuring a number of Jazz standards, including "Someone to Watch Over Me", "Misty" and "Fantastic, That's You". He started with Decca in 1941, and recorded for Mercury and Coral before starting with Dot in the early 1950s. These records are very rare.įrom 1938 to 1940, he recorded in New York and Chicago for the Vocalion label. In November, 1928, he recorded for Gennett and in 1931, he recorded for Paramount. Sometimes, Welk's band made recordings in Richmond, Indiana and in Grafton, Wisconsin for the Gennett and Paramount companies. From 1949 through 1951, the band had its own national radio program on ABC. The record (Decca 18698) was #4 on Billboard's September 15 "Most Played Juke Box Folk Records" listing. Welk recorded a version of Spade Cooley's "Shame on You" with Western artist Red Foley in 1945. His orchestra also played at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City during the late 1940s. In the early 1940s, the band started to play at the Trianon Ballroom in Chicago, where they played for 10 years. Welk's big band performed across the country but mostly at ballrooms and hotels in the Chicago and Milwaukee areas.
We play with a steady beat so that dancers can follow it." We place the stress on melody the chords are played pretty much the way the composer wrote them. Welk described his band's sound, saying "We still play music with the champagne style, which means light and rhythmic. At an engagement at the William Penn Hotel in Pittsburgh, a dancer said that Welk's band's sound was as "light and bubbly as champagne," which is where the term "Champagne Music" came from. They were too poor to rent rooms, so they usually slept and changed clothes in their cars. At first, the band traveled around the country by car. In 1927, he graduated from the MacPhail School of Music in Minneapolis, Minnesota.ĭuring the 1930s, Welk led a traveling big band that played dance tunes and "sweet" music. His band also played for radio station WNAX in Yankton, South Dakota. These included the Hotsy Totsy Boys and later the Honolulu Fruit Gum Orchestra.
He led big bands in North Dakota and eastern South Dakota. Kelly bands before he started his own orchestra. During the 1920s, he performed with the Luke Witkowski, Lincoln Boulds, and George T. On his 21st birthday, Welk left the family's farm to start his career in music. Any other money he earned during that time, by doing farmwork or performing, would go to his family. Welk decided on a career in music and got his father to buy him an accordion from a mail order for $400 (equivalent to $4,255 in 2018)2018 He promised his father that he would work on the farm until he was 21, to pay his father back for the accordion. In North Dakota, the family lived on a homestead. They emigrated to America in 1892 from Selz, Kutschurgan District, in the German-speaking area north of Odessa (now Odessa, Ukraine, but then in southwestern Russia). His parents were Ludwig and Christiana (Schwahn) Welk, who were ethnic Germans from Russia. Most people there spoke German, but also knew English. Welk was born in Strasburg, North Dakota.
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