Lawrence Welk

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Lawrence Welk (March 11, 1903-May 17, 1992) was an American musician, accordionist, bandleader, and television impresario who oversaw the Lawrence Welk Show from 1951 to 1982.

His style came to be known as "champagne music" among his large audience of radio, television, and live-performance enthusiasts (and critics).

Early life

Welk was born in Strasburg, North Dakota, by a German-speaking family. He was the sixth of Ludwig and Christiana (née Schwahn) Welk, a Roman Catholic ethnic Germans who immigrated in 1892 from Odessa, Russia, (now Ukraine).

Welk was a first cousin, later removed of former Montana governor Brian Schweitzer (Welk's mother and Schweitzer's paternal grandmother were siblings). Moritz and Magdalena Welk, the nation's paternal great-grandparents, immigrated in 1808 from Germanophone Alsace-Lorraine to Ukraine.

The family lived on a homestead that is now a tourist attraction. They spent the winter of their first year in North Dakota with an upturned wagon covered in sod. Welk's defiant schooling has led to full time on the family farm.

Welk opted for a career in music and persuaded his father to buy a mail-order accordion worth $400 (equivalent to $5,411 in 2021). In exchange for the accordion, he promised his father that he would not work on the farm until he was 21, in repayment for the accordion. Any money he earned elsewhere during that time, whether doing farmwork or performing, would go to his family.

Welk didn't learn to speak English until he was twenty-one, and he never felt confident speaking English in public until then. Welk was a hero in the German-Russian community of the northern Great Plains, whose triumph story personified the American dream.

Personal life

Welk lived for 61 years until his death in 1992 to Fern Renner (August 26, 1903 – February 13, 2002), with whom he had three children. Lawrence Welk Jr., one of his sons, married Tanya Falan, a fellow Lawrence Welk Show performer; they later divorced. During his lifetime, Welk had many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Welk, who is best known for his success as a result of a strong businessman, has made investments in real estate and music publishing. He was the general partner in a commercial real estate development on 100 Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica, California. The 21-story white tower, which is on the bluffs overlooking Santa Monica Bay at Ocean Avenue, is Santa Monica's tallest structure. It was a joint venture with engineering company Daniel, Mann, Johnson & Mendenhall. GTE, now Verizon, was the country's biggest original tenant. Welk also owned the adjacent 16-story luxury apartment building at 1221 Ocean Avenue, the "Lawrence Welk Champagne Towers," and Welk's personal residence in the complex. At 1299 Ocean Avenue at Arizona Street, he designed the adjacent 11-story Wilshire Palisades office building. It's shaped to look like a white ocean liner, with a wedge-shaped "bow" edge, receding "decks" with railings, and air conditioner covers that look like smokestacks. On the corner, the shape creates a landscaped plaza, and the end is a masterpiece.

Welk loved playing golf, first taking up in the late 1950s, and was a regular at several well-known celebrity pro-am tournaments, including the Bob Hope Desert Classic.

Welk was awarded four US design patents:

Welk, a devout Roman Catholic devout, was a regular communicant, as reflected by several biographies, his autobiography and the contributions of his family, colleagues, and associates over the years.

Welk was also a member of The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.

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Early career

Welk, who kept his promise to his father, left the family farm to pursue a career in music on his 21st birthday. He appeared with various bands in the 1920s before forming an orchestra. He toured big bands in North Dakota and eastern South Dakota, including the Hotsy Totsy Boys and the Honolulu Fruit Gum Orchestra. His band appeared on WNAX, the famous radio show in Yankton, South Dakota. The Lawrence Welk Orchestra made a quick success and launched a daily radio show that lasted from 1927 to 1936. Several well-paying gigs for the band performed throughout the midwestern states were tied to the radio show. He graduated from the MacPhail School of Music in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1927.

Though most associate Welk's music with jazz, he released one of his first recordings for Gennett Records, headquartered in Richmond, Indiana, in November 1928: "Spiked Beer," starring Welk and his Novelty Orchestra.

Welk was a touring big band that specialized in dance tunes and "sweet" music during the 1930s (during this period, bands playing light-melodic music were referred to as "sweet bands" to distinguish them from the more experimental and assertive "hot" bands of artists like Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington). The band first travelled around the country by train. They were too young to rent rooms, so they often slept and changed clothes in their cars. After a dancer referred to his band's sound as "light and bubbly as champagne," the term champagne music emerged from an engagement at the William Penn Hotel in Pittsburgh. The hotel also claims to the original "bubble machine," a feature left over from a 1920s movie premiere. "We still play music with the champagne style," Welk said of his band's sound, referring to the light and rhythmic. We're focusing on melody here; the chords are played exactly as the composer intended them. We play with a steady beat so dancers can follow it."

Welk's big band appeared around the country, but particularly in the Chicago and Milwaukee areas. The band debuted at the Trianon Ballroom in Chicago in the early 1940s, regularly drawing huge audiences of hundreds of thousands. During the late 1940s, his orchestra appeared at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City often. Welk's orchestra appeared in 10 "Soundies," three-minute movie musicals that were considered the first modern music videos in 1944 and 1945.

In 1945, Welk collaborated with Red Foley, a West American artist, to produce a recreation of Spade Cooley's "Shame on You" in terms of Spade Cooley's "Shame on You" (Shame on You). On Billboard's September 15 "Most Played Juke Box Folk Records" list, Decca 18698) ranked fourth to Cooley's number 5 spot. The band appeared on ABC from 1949 to 1951, "The Champagne of Bottled Beer" was sponsored by Miller High Life.

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