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Lawrence Welk (March 11, 1903 – May 17, 1992) was a musician, accordion player, bandleader, and television impresario. His style came to be known to his large number of radio, television, and live-performance fans as "champagne music." He is a 1961 inductee of North Dakota's Roughrider Award.
Beginnings
Lawrence was born in Strasburg, North Dakota, as one of nine children to Catholic, German-speaking, immigrants from French portion of Alsace-Lorraine, via Odessa, Ukraine.
The family lived on a homestead outside of town which today still stands as a tourist attraction. The first year they lived there, they spent the cold Dakota winter underneath an upturned wagon covered in sod. Never intent on being a farmer, Welk became interested in a career in music, convincing his father to purchase a mail-order accordion for $400. He made a promise to his father that he would continue to work on the farm until he turned twenty-one; in exchange, he would work on the farm and any money he made working elsewhere, whether doing farmwork or putting on a show, would go to his family.
Welk is said to have learned English only when he was already an adult because he always spoke German at home. When he was asked about his ancestry, he replied always with "Alsace-Lorraine, Germany"; This is explained in his autobiography titled "Wunnerful, Wunnerful!"
Early career
On his twenty-first birthday, Welk, having fufilled his promise to his father, left the family farm to pursue a career in music. During the 1920s, he first performed with the Lincoln Boulds and George T. Kelly bands before starting his own orchestra. He led big band engagements in the North Dakota and eastern South Dakota area, such as the Hotsy Totsy Boys and later the Honolulu Fruit Gum Orchestra. His band was also the station band for popular radio station WNAX in Yankton, South Dakota.
During the 1930s, Welk led a travelling big band, specializing in dance tunes and 'sweet' music. The term Champagne Music was derived from an engagement at the William Penn Hotel in Pittsburgh, when a dancer referred to his band's sound as "light and bubbly as champagne". The band performed in many places across the country, particularly in the Chicago area. In the early 1940s, the band began a regular 10-year stint at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, regularly drawing crowds of nearly 7000.
His orchestra also performed frequently at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City during the late 1940s. In 1944-45 Welk led his orchestra in many motion picture Soundies, considered to be the early pioneers of music videos, and the band had its own syndicated radio program sponsored by Miller High Life beer.
The Lawrence Welk Show
Main article: The Lawrence Welk ShowIn 1951, Welk settled in Los Angeles, California. That same year, he began producing The Lawrence Welk Show on KTLA in Los Angeles where it was broadcast from the Aragon Ballroom in Venice Beach. After being a local hit, the show first aired nationally on ABC in the spring of 1955. Welk's television program had a policy to play well-known songs and tunes from previous years, so that the target audience would only hear numbers that they were already familiar with. Very occasionally, in the TV show's early days, the band would play a tune from the current charts, but strictly as a novelty number ("Nuttin' for Christmas" became a vehicle for comic singer Rocky Rockwell, dressed in a child's outfit; Elvis Presley's "Don't Be Cruel" was sung by violinist Bob Lido, wearing fake Elvis sideburns). Welk never lost his affection for the hot jazz he'd played in the 1920s, and when a dixieland tune was scheduled he would enthusiastically lead the band.
The type of music on The Lawrence Welk Show was almost always conservative, concentrating mostly on pop song standards, polkas, and novelty songs, delivered in a smooth, calming, good-humored easy listening style and it was family-oriented. This strategy proved commercially successful.
Much of the show's appeal was Welk himself. Although born in the United States, he spoke with a slight but notable German accent that many found to be appealing. (As on one 1955 show, when he mentioned Danny Thomas's series, "Mek Room fur Deddy.") While Welk's English was passable, he never did grasp the English idiom completely, and was thus famous for his "Welk-isms", such as "George, I want to see you when you have a minute, right now". His TV show was recorded as if it were a live performance, and was sometimes quite free-wheeling. He often took ladies from the audience for a turn around the dance floor. During one show, Welk brought a cameraman out to dance with one of the ladies and took over the camera himself.
Welk's musicians were always top quality, including accordionist Myron Floren and New Orleans Dixieland clarinetist Pete Fountain. Though Welk was occasionally rumored to be very tight with a dollar, he paid his regular band members top scale - a very good living for a working musician. He was noted for spotlighting individual members of his band and show. His band was well-disciplined and had excellent arrangements in all styles. One notable showcase was his album with the noted jazz saxophonist Johnny Hodges. Welk had a number of instrumental hits, including a cover of the song "Yellow Bird". His highest charting record was his recording of "Calcutta". Welk himself was indifferent to the tune, but his musical director George Cates said that if Welk did not wish to record the song, he, (Cates) would. Welk replied: "Well, if it's good enough for you, George, I guess it's good enough for me." Despite the emergence of rock and roll, "Calcutta" reached number 1 on the U.S. pop charts in 1961, and was recorded in only one take.
The Lawrence Welk Show embraced changes on the musical scene over the years. The show continued to feature fresh music alongside the classics for as long as it existed, even music originally not intended for the big band sound. During the 1960s and 1970s, for instance, the show incorporated material by such contemporary sources as The Beatles, Burt Bacharach and Hal David, The Everly Brothers and Paul Williams, albeit in Welk's signature Champagne style. The show, which was originally produced in black and white, was recorded on videotape starting in 1957, and it switched to color for the fall TV season that started in September of 1965 . In time, it would feature synthesized music and, toward the end of its run, early chroma key technology would add a new dimension to the story settings sometimes used for the musical numbers. He refers to his blue screen effect in one episode as "the magic of television".
During its network run, The Lawrence Welk Show aired on ABC-TV o Saturday nights, at 8 p.m. (Eastern Time). ABC cancelled the show in the spring of 1971, but it continued on as a syndicated show (carried on many of the same stations that previously aired it, but at an earlier time) until the final original show was produced in 1982.
Personal life
Welk was married for 61 years, until his death, to Fern Renner, with whom he had three children. One of his sons, Lawrence Welk, Jr., ended up marrying fellow Lawrence Welk Show performer Tanya Falan (they later divorced). He left many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Later years
After retiring his show and from the road in 1982, the maestro continued to air reruns of his shows which were repackaged first for syndication and starting in 1986 for public television. Welk also starred and produced a pair of Christmas specials in 1984 and 1985.
He died from pneumonia in Santa Monica, California in 1992 and is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.
Legacy
His band continues to appear in a dedicated theater in Branson, Missouri. In addition, the television show has been repackaged for broadcast on PBS stations, with updates from show performers appearing where commercial breaks were during the original shows. The repackaged shows are broadcast at roughly the same Saturday-night time slot as the original ABC shows, and special longer Welk show rebroadcasts are often shown during individual stations' fund-raising periods.
A resort community in Escondido, California, developed by the maestro and promoted heavily by him on the show, is still named for Welk.
His organization, The Welk Group consists of his resort communities in Branson and Escondido; Welk Syndication which is responsible for broadcasting the show on public television and the Welk Music Group which operates record labels Sugar Hill, Vanguard and Ranwood.
The Live Lawrence Welk Show makes annual concert tours across the United States and Canada featuring the actual stars from the television series such as Ralna English, Mary Lou Metzger and Big Tiny Little.
Facts
- Welk's California automobile license plate read A1ANA2, referencing his trademark count-off before each number, "A one, and a two..." This plate is visible on the front of a Model A Ford in one of the shows from 1980.
- Known as an excellent businessman, the maestro, thanks to wise investments in real estate and music publishing, was the second wealthiest entertainer in Hollywood, the wealthiest being Bob Hope.
- Welk was the Grand Marshal for the Rose Bowl's Tournament of Roses parade in 1972.
- He enjoyed playing golf, which he first took up in the late 1950s, and was often a regular at many celebrity pro-ams such as the Bob Hope Desert Classic.
- He was also a recipient of the state of North Dakota's Roughrider Award.
- The Welk family homestead in Strasburg is now a popular tourist attraction in North Dakota.
- In 1994, he was inducted into the International Polka Music Hall Of Fame.
- From the late 1950s to the mid-1980s, the Welk Group was known as Teleklew in which tele stood for television and klew was Welk spelled backwards.
- His grandson, Lawrence Welk III, is a reporter and helicopter traffic pilot for KCAL and KCBS television in Los Angeles.
- The Lawrence Welk museum resides on a street also named after him, Lawrence Welk Drive, in Escondido, California.
- The Roof Is On Fire by the Bloodhound Gang names Welk along with Kurt Cobain as residents of hell.
Books
All books written with Bernice McGeehan and published by Prentice Hall (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), except where indicated:
- Wunnerful, Wunnerful: The Autobiography of Lawrence Welk, 1971, ISBN 0-13-971515-0
- Ah-One, Ah-Two! Life with My Musical Family, 1974, ISBN 0-13-020990-2
- My America, Your America, 1976, ISBN 0-13-608414-1
- Lawrence Welk's Musical Family Album, 1977, ISBN 0-13-526624-6
- Welk with McGeehan, illustrated by Carol Bryan, Lawrence Welk's Bunny Rabbit Concert, Indianapolis: Youth Publications/Saturday Evening Post Co., 1977, ISBN 0-89387-501-5 (children's book)
- This I Believe, 1979, ISBN 0-13-919092-9
- You're Never Too Young, 1981, ISBN 0-13-977181-6
External links
- Lawrence Welk at IMDb
- Lawrence Welk archives at North Dakota State University
- Welk Musical Family website
- WelkNotes fansite
- "Old Fans Still Bubble Along to Lawrence Welk" article (The New York Times)
- Welk Show.com
- Welk Musical Family blog
- Lawrence Welk Television Show Fan Site