The PBS showings usually have an interview with a former Welk musician, whose children are either a doctor or a lawyer. They speak highly about him although I wonder if they would ever have anyone who gripes about the pay, the type of music they played or the working conditions. They say Welk didn’t slack off in practices when they went from broadcasting live to recording on tape. He made sure they played the music they way he wanted.
I don’t “watch” it, but I’ve had it on as background noise a few times.
When I was a kid in the 1970s, nobody admitted that they watched it, but we all knew enough about it to make fun of it, and how else would we be able to do that? When I was in my early 20s, I was working with several other people who were about my age, and one of them said one day, “When I was a little kid, I wanted to be on Lawrence Welk when I grew up.” All the rest of us, myself included, concurred, and part of that was that none of us had ever previously admitted it to anybody.
That’s why my parents watched it. Welk was pretty much unique from about the mid-1960s on. If you liked big bands and standards, that was your one chance to see them on TV.
So, while I can see the appeal to people like my parents, my parents would be over 100 years old today. I have trouble believing there are still enough people alive to justify it being shown even on PBS. Maybe one of those nostalgia networks like Antenna or Cozi.
Right around the time they sang “What the World Needs Now (Is Love, Sweet Love),” and Welk said “Thank-a you girls, I’ll certainly agree with that-a philosophy-um.”
I swear, for years I thought he was-a Italian! :smack:
It was also a place where kids could turn on the TV and see grownups playing their band instruments. It was in the day when flutes and clarinets were still considered “girl” instruments, and it was odd to us to see men playing them.
A couple years after I graduated, I worked at a pharmacy that had a contract with a local nursing home, and was called in to fill and deliver an emergency order. When I arrived at the facility, every room I passed that had a TV on was tuned to Mr. Welk. And that was over 20 years ago.
I would, however, rather see something like that than anything like this:
A pharmacist on another board told a comparable story, except in this case, he heard an elderly woman calling for help, so he went into her room. She pointed up at the TV and said, “There is pornography on my television!” Sure enough, the female unit secretary and a consulting male physician were having sex in the chapel :eek: , and this was being broadcasted to the whole facility via a closed-circuit channel which was used for patients who wished to attend services but couldn’t leave their rooms. The secretary was fired; the doctor couldn’t be fired because he wasn’t an official employee of the home, but he was censured through the state board.
Wrap your head around this: Listen to Zappa’s Hot Rats album, third track “Son Of Mister Green Genes.” Notice the drumming. That’s Paul Humphrey, who (among other things) went on to be Lawrence Welk’s drummer for six years.
I read an account of how welk toured ……it was creepy …he had a morals contract with his musicians and their families that louie b mayer would envy…….
Funny thing was one of the stations would run welk before hee haw and my grandparents that anything music that wasn’t country would watch it …… because they played a lot of the ww2 era songs
I agree that Welk is somehow iconic and memorable, but it took me a while to find the right way to describe his music. I consider it to be great technique, but without passion. It’s like they’re trying to make it look as easy and effortless as possible. I would put Liberace and Celine Dion into the same category, somewhat. And there’s nothing really wrong with it. I just find myself thinking that if you have the energy to look into the camera and always smile, and you never have a hair out of place, then you’re just not trying hard enough. Put some of your soul into it, man; that’s what it’s there for!
In it’s heyday, I’d never say that big band music was passionless. Watch this clip with Gene Krupa on the drums and tell me if you think he’s holding anything back.
40+ years ago, when I was a kid, my paternal grandmother watched it religiously; I’ve always though of it as “grandmother music.” Were she alive now, my grandmother would be 116.
My parents, now, are about the age that my grandmother was, back then, but it’s not their style of music, at all, and I’m not sure that I can think of any of their peers who would be interested in watching that sort of show (or listening to that sort of music).
