Lawrence Welk - Biography
By J Poet
Lawrence Welk is probably the best known and most popular easy listing artist of all time. Although he recorded prolifically, mostly for Dot and his own Ranwood label, he was best known for his TV show, which started on local LA station KLTA in 1951, moving to ABC in 1955. It lasted until 1982, but continues on in syndication all over the world. In 1987 the PBS bio, Lawrence Welk, TV's Music Man, got some of the biggest numbers the network had ever seen. Welk died in 1992, but his music empire and his band live on. The Welk Music group includes the Ranwood, Vanguard and Sugar Hill labels and a music publishing company that oversees 20,000 songs including the complete Jerome Kern catalog. Former Welk band members play nightly at the Champagne Music Theater in Branson, MO.
Lawrence Welk was born on a farm near Strasburg, North Dakota in 1903, one of the younger members of an eight child family. His Russian born father gave him his first accordion and he left grammar school to help on his parents’ farm. He learned accordion at night from his father, and by 13 he was playing church socials, weddings and local dances. He grew up speaking the French/German dialect of his parents and didn’t learn English until he was 21.
Ha started his first band, The Biggest Little Band in America, when he was 17 and they played free for local radio stations to promote upcoming gigs. He left home to play in the many polka bands then touring the Midwest, but soon started another group, Lawrence and His Hotsy Totsy Boys, in 1927. The band toured relentlessly throughout the Midwest changing its name to Lawrence Welk’s Honolulu Fruit Gum Orchestra, which had a regular slot on WNAX radio in Yankton, South Dakota, and finally Lawrence Welk and his Orchestra. In 1931 he married Fern Renner, his life long partner. During a 1938 gig at Pittsburgh’s William Penn Hotel a fan likened their sound to sipping champagne and the tag line Champagne Music was born. Welk often joked about the moniker. “You have to play good to hold a note,” Welk told Newsweek magazine in the 50s. “We decided to play short notes so nobody would notice we weren’t that good. The audience said our music was bubbly like champagne.” Despite his disclaimer, Welk only hired first class musicians for his band including Dixieland jazz clarinetist Pete Fountain.
In 1939 he hired Lois Best, his first Champagne Lady and in 1940 began a nine-year gig at the Trianon Ballroom in Chicago, IL. In 1944 he had a syndicated radio program, sponsored by The Champagne of Bottled Beer, Miller High Life. A mild case of asthma kept him out of uniform in WW II and he hired musicians like trombonist Barney Liddell, trumpet players Norman Bailey and Rocky Rockwell, vocalist Dick Dale and accordionist Myron Floren. As the big bands began to fade, Welk moved to Los Angeles and in 1951 began playing nightly at the Aragon Ballroom on the pier at Ocean Park. KTLA-TV put one of their Aragon gigs on the air and the response from the public was so overwhelming KTLA gave the band a four year contract. In 1955, the Chrysler Corporation used the Lawrence Welk Show for a summer replacement slot, but again they were so popular that the show was extended until 1971. In those years he hired vocalists Jimmy Roberts and Larry Hooper, Champagne Lady Alice Lon, the lovely Lennon Sisters, and honky-tonk piano players Big Tiny Little and Jo Ann Castle. In 1957, Welk was invited to play President Dwight D. Eisenhower's inaugural ball.
Welk was shy and puritanical, as wholesome in his personal life as his image suggested. He never let cigarette or beer manufacturers advertise on his show and never hired comedians, fearing they might tell “dirty jokes.” Songs were scrutinized for suggestive lyrics and Champagne Lady Alice Lon was fired for wearing a miniskirt. Welk’s weekly time capsule of a white bread ‘50s America was a self enclosed universe. Millions of people tuned in each week to see them sing and play. Welk recorded prolifically and the albums sold well due to his TV popularity. Calcutta (1961 Dot, 1992 Ranwood) was the #1 pop album for 11 weeks and spent a year on the charts with the title track also a #1 single. Other Dot albums, some later reissued on Ranwood include Wonderful! Wonderful!, Lawrence Welk Plays Dixieland (1956), a set with Pete Fountain on clarinet, Last Date, Yellow Bird (1982 Ranwood), Moon River (1992 Ranwood), Young World, Baby Elephant Walk and Theme From the Brothers Grimm.
After ABC fired the band in 1971, Welk, who was a sharp businessman, started his own TV syndication scheme and the Welk Network, 250 independent television stations in the United States and Canada, kept the show going until 1982. PBS TV has been broadcasting old shows as Memories With Lawrence Welk since 1987. Welk created the Lawrence Welk Village, a retirement complex in Escondido, California, started the Welk Music group, which includes the Ranwood, Vanguard and Sugar Hill labels and founded a music publishing company that oversees 20,000 songs including the complete Jerome Kern catalog. Many young people who grew up in the 60s know Welk primarily as the punch line of jokes about the Silent Majority, but the ‘70s, he was one of the wealthiest performers in show business.
After the TV show ended, Welk went back on the road, playing concerts until 1989 when he could no longer hold his accordion. He got pneumonia and died, surround by his family, in 1992, but his shows still run almost every night on a TV set somewhere in the world. Former Welk band members play nightly at the Champagne Music Theater in Branson, MO. Welk was inducted into the International Polka Music Hall Of Fame in 1994 and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Many Welk albums are out of print, but Ranwood, the company he started with Randy Wood in 1968, plans to keep reissuing Welk’s tiles. Available albums include Hymns We Love (1971 Ranwood), Waltz Time (1982 Ranwood), Musical Memories (1984 Ranwood), I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles – the Champagne Music of Lawrence Welk (1985 Ranwood), 22 All Time Favorite Waltzes (1987 Ranwood), 22 All Time Big Band Favorites (1991 Ranwood), Lawrence Welk Plays for a Dance Party (1992 Ranwood), Lawrence Welk Plays I Love You Truly and Other Songs of Love (1992 Ranwood), Live at Lake Tahoe (1992 Ranwood), TV Favorites (1992 Ranwood), Winchester Cathedral (1992 Ranwood), Favorite Hymns (1995 Ranwood), 22 Great Country Music Hits (1994 Ranwood), and Precious Memories (2005 Ranwood). You can also pick up Biggest Hits (1995 MCA), Favorites (1995 Columbia), 16 Most Requested Songs (2008 Columbia) and the three disc Lawrence Welk Plays a 50-Year Hit Parade of Songs (1991 Reader’s Digest).
