He established a retirement resort outside San Diego, Lawrence Welk Village, that's now home to many of his fans. Welk accumulated a vast real-estate empire and acquired royalty rights to 20,000 songs, including the entire body of Jerome Kern's work. Welk promptly signed a lucrative syndication contract and went right on producing the show for a number of years thereafter, with even greater financial reward.
The Lawrence Welk Show was a staple of ABC for many years, but the network dropped the show in the 1970s because programmers thought its audience was too old and moving away from its core viewing target. George Cates was Welk's musical director throughout the show's 25-year run. He maintained a roster of musical regulars, including ragtime pianist JoAnn Castle, accordion player Myron Floren, singer Norma Zimmer and Joe Feeney, organist Bob Ralston, guitarist Buddy Merrill, and the singing group the Lennon Sisters.
He was a demanding taskmaster dedicated to producing a nostalgic, wholesome show. Radar Online- ‘The Lawrence Welk Show’ was mocked as television’s most wholesome program but bandleader Lawrence Welk stayed busy covering up scandals behind the scenes The once-popular show ran between 1955 to 1982, including 27 seasons on the ABC network, and still remains popular in reruns. Within a few years, he joined the big band movement with a group that toured Midwest.Īlthough written off as a hick by music critics, Welk was a shrewd businessman. After leaving high school, he went into music full-time, eventually forming two groups, the Biggest Little Band in America and the Hotsy-Totsy Boys. He began performing professionally at the age of 13, playing the accordion. Welk was raised in a German-speaking hamlet in North Dakota,Īnd did not learn English until he was 21, accounting for his distinctive accent. Whether it's worth the effort to weed through all the junk to find them is another question. Within the stream of products Welk put out over a period of 30-odd years can be found a few gems-mostly in his 60s material on Dot Records.
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