[78-L] Lawrence Welk's son said...

[Taylor Bowie]

Jeff,  Welk had a black drummer for several years,  Paul something,  who 
replaced the excellent Johnny Klein.  This would have been ca. 1968 - 75.

George Cates was Welk's musical director for many years and wrote a lot of 
fine charts.  The other day I watched a YouTube vid where Welk announces 
that a tune was "a Joe Haymes arrangement."

Taylor B


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jeff Sultanof" <jeffsultanof at gmail.com>
To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2009 2:46 PM
Subject: Re: [78-L] Lawrence Welk's son said...


> Interesting that this thread would come up. Welk was a huge traditional 
> jazz
> fan, and his last band was one of the best big bands in the country, with
> excellent musicians who could play absolutely everything. When the band
> played big band standards, it played them very well. He had excellent
> arrangers such as Jack Pleis and Joe Rizzo (who once wrote for Stan 
> Kenton).
>
> Let's also remember that he loved Johnny Hodges, produced an album for him
> in which no expense was spared, and wanted to hire him to play lead in his
> band, proving he was also color-blind when it came to musicians (although
> Arthur Duncan was the only black performer on the show, and a tap dancer 
> to
> boot). If he couldn't get Hodges, he got alto players who sounded like
> Hodges, such as Skeets Herfurt whom he got out of retirement. I looked
> forward to Herfurt's solos every week, as he could still play beautifully.
>
> Welk knew what the public wanted and gave it to them (Yes, I also find Joe
> Feeney and Norma Zimmer hard to take), but he had good taste in music, and
> it showed in the final years of his show.
>
> Jeff Sultanof
> On Tue, Jun 23, 2009 at 5:11 AM, RAY KILCOYNE <kil at roadrunner.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> From: "Rodger Holtin"
>> The problem for guys like DL and others is you have to wade through hours
>> of
>> Joe Feenamint and Norma Zimmmmerrrrzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ... and I don't blame
>> you.
>> We let it play while we do the dishes and once in a while get lucky - but
>> like any other instance of getting lucky - it's not very often.
>> >
>> I've waded through many an hour of Welk just for a short glimpse of Kathy
>> Lennon.  Still do.
>> RayK
>>
>>
>>
>> For Best Results use Victor Needles.
>>
>>
>>
>> ..
>>
>>
>>
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