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. ĭuring the 1930s, Welk led a traveling big band that played dance tunes and "sweet" music. In 1927, he graduated from the MacPhail School of Music in Minneapolis, Minnesota. 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 $4,894 in 2017) 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. For more information, call 783-8000.Welk was born in Strasburg, North Dakota. * Also playing in Baltimore: Jim Roberts, veteran concert tenor, Floren's "big band" 13-piece orchestra, clarinetist Henry Cuesta and marimba player Jack Imel.
Spent almost a decade overseas, played with Lionel Hampton's group before Welk signed him, more recently played in the movie "Tap" and did stints with Tony Martin, Barbara McNair and the Gene Krupa Band.
* Arthur Duncan: longtime singer and dancer, left Pasadena City College to "see what this show business was all about" and never returned, has performed in nightclubs and on TV since. Played 52nd Street jam sessions in New York with such jazz stars as Sid Catlett, Billie Holiday, J.C. * Barney Liddell: veteran pop and jazz trombone star, joined Welk in 1948 after wartime service. Boylan left the show in 1967 to be married to Greg Dixon, came back occasionally to dance with Burgess and now teaches dance near Denver. Is a regular in theater-in-the-round and nightclub shows and a Disney spokesman. A full-time Disney Mousketeer for four years, Burgess spent two decades on the Welk show, once with Boylan beat 11,000 others in a national dance contest. * Bobby Burgess and Barbara Boylan: a dancing duo on and off since they met in dancing class at 13.