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| Lawrence Welk |
Lawrence Welk during a taping of “The Lawrence Welk Show” |
| Born |
March 11, 1903(1903-03-11)
Strasburg, North Dakota |
| Died |
May 17, 1992(1992-05-17) (aged 89)
Santa Monica, California |
| Occupation |
Musician, accordionist, bandleader, and television impresario |
| Spouse |
Fern Renner (August 26, 1903–February 13, 2002) |
| Children |
Shirley, Donna and Lawrence, Jr (“Larry”) |
| Website |
| Welk Musical Family |
Lawrence Welk (March 11, 1903 – May 17, 1992) was an American musician, accordionist, bandleader, and television impresario, hosting The Lawrence Welk Show from 1955 to 1982. His style came to be known to his large number of radio, television, and live-performance fans (and critics) as “champagne music.”
[edit] Early years
Welk was born in the German-speaking community of Strasburg, North Dakota. He was sixth of the eight children of Ludwig and Christiana Welk, ethnic Germans who immigrated to America in 1892 from Odessa, Ukraine, which was then part of the Russian Empire.[1]
The family lived on a homestead, which today is a tourist attraction. They spent the cold North Dakota winter of their first year under an upturned wagon covered in sod.[citation needed]
Welk decided on a career in music, and convinced his father to buy a mail-order accordion for $400.[2] He promised his father that he would work on the farm until he was 21, in repayment for the accordion. Any money he made elsewhere during that time, doing farmwork or performing, would go to his family.
A common misconception is that Welk did not learn English until he was 21. In fact, he began learning English as soon as he started school. The part of North Dakota where he lived had been settled largely by Germans from Russia; even his teachers spoke English as a second language. Welk thus acquired his trademark accent, a combination of the Russian and German accents. He took elocution lessons in the 1950s and could speak almost accent-free, but he realized his public expected to hear him say: “A-one, an-a-two” and “Wunnerful, Wunnerful!” When he was asked about his ancestry, he would always reply “Alsace-Lorraine, Germany,” from where his forebears had emigrated to Russia (and which, at the time of Welk’s birth in 1903, was still under German control).
[edit] Early career
On his twenty-first birthday, Welk having fulfilled his promise to his father; left the family farm to pursue a career in music which he loved. During the 1920s, he performed with the Luke Witkowski, Lincoln Boulds, and George T. Kelly bands, before starting his own orchestra. He led big bands in North Dakota and eastern South Dakota. These included the Hotsy Totsy Boys and later the Honolulu Fruit Gum Orchestra.[3] His band was also the station band for popular radio station WNAX, in Yankton, South Dakota. In 1927, he graduated from the MacPhail School of Music in Minneapolis, Minnesota.[4]
Although many associate Welk’s music with a style quite separate from jazz, he did record one notable song in a ragtime style in November 1928 for Indiana-based Gennett Records. “Spiked Beer” featured Welk and his Novelty Orchestra.
During the 1930s, Welk led a traveling big band, specializing in dance tunes and “sweet” music. Initially, the band traveled around the country by car. They were too poor to rent rooms, so they usually slept and changed clothes in their cars. 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 hotel also lays claim to the original “bubble machine”, a prop left over from a 1920s movie premiere. The band performed across the country, but particularly in the Chicago and Milwaukee areas. In the early 1940s, the band began a 10-year stint at the Trianon Ballroom in Chicago, regularly drawing crowds of nearly 7,000.
His orchestra also performed frequently at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City during the late 1940s. In 1944 and 1945, Welk led his orchestra in many motion picture “Soundies“, considered to be the early pioneers of music videos,[citation needed] and from 1949 through 1951, the band had its own national radio program on ABC, sponsored by “The Champagne of Bottle Beer” Miller High Life.
[edit] The Lawrence Welk Show
YES, UNCLE TOMMY THOMPSON PLAYED WITH LAWRENCE WELK IN PICKUP DANCE BANDS IN EASTERN SOUTH DAKOTA.
YEARS LATER, WHEN TOMMY WOULD STOP BY WELK’S RESORT IN ESCCONDIDO HE WOULD STILL BE RECOGNIZED.
Gary has a drywall business in Gillette, Whyoming and his home is located on a hill that has a view of the Big Horn Mountains where deer and antelope roam the acreage and in the few trees are nests for horned owls and a special endangered hawk.
When uncle tommy passed away in san diego, california, I was the executor of his estate and I saw to it that his trumphet fell into the hands of one who was musically inclinded.
Tommy was always a welcome guest in our home in Riverside, California-beloved by Angela, Randy and Dan.
one of uncle Tommy’s friends was a small person, Kayo Erickson, who starred as one of the 25 small people in the WIZARD OF OZ.
uncle tommy played and sang with the San Bernardion barkershop choir-250 members and with the San Diego barbershop chourus that place 2nd in world competion.