Bandleader, born in Strasburg, North Dakota, USA. In the 1920s he developed what he called a sweet-sounding champagne music with his orchestra. He toured and appeared on radio in the 1930s and 1940s and began hosting his own television show (1951). Carried on network television until 1971, the show featured such traditional forms as tap and ballroom dancing, ragtime piano, and a variety of singing. He was a major publisher of music and wrote several books.
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.
Beginnings
Lawrence was born in Strasburg, North Dakota, as one of eight children to German Catholic immigrants from Czarist Russia. Never intent on being a farmer, Welk became interested in a career in music, convincing his father to purchase a mail-order accordion for $300. Welk would perform his accordion at churches, barn dances and social gatherings with all the financial proceeds going to his family.
Welk is said to have learned English only when he was already an adult because he always spoke German at home.
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.
During the 1930s, Welk led a travelling big band, specializing in dance tunes and 'sweet' music. Welk also led his orchestra in many motion picture soundies, considered to be the early pioneers of music videos and had their own syndicated radio program sponsored by Miller High Life beer.
The Lawrence Welk Show
In 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. Welk's television program had a policy to play only well-known songs and tunes from previous years, so that the target audience would only hear numbers that they were already familiar with.
Much of the show's appeal was Welk himself. 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 (and indeed, could be on occasion) he paid his regular band members top scale - a very good living for a working musician. 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.
The Lawrence Welk Show embraced changes on the musical scene over the years. (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 in black and white, later went to color in the mid-1960s. In time it would feature synthesized music and, towards the end, early green screen technology that - at least in Welk's mind - would add a new dimension to the story settings sometimes used for the musical numbers.
Personal life
Welk was married for sixty-one 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.
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 1987 for public television.
Legacy
His band continues to appear in a dedicated theater in Branson, Missouri, even though Welk is now deceased. 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;
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..."
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 was Bob Hope.
Welk was the Grand Marshal for the Rose Bowl's Tournament of Roses parade in 1972.
The Welk family homestead in Strasburg is now a popular tourist attraction in North Dakota.
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.
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
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