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

[David Lennick]

But..but..but....yes he recorded with Johnny Hodges (and it was a gorgeous 
album, I agree).

But it's still LAWRENCE FREAKIN' WELK!

And nobody cries when you cut up an accordion.

dl

Taylor Bowie wrote:
> 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
>>>