"America's Biggest Little Band Made History" continued...
Lawrence Welk made more money selling
Honolulu Fruit Gum in ballrooms, drugstores and restaurants
in the midwestern states, than he did playing music!
He bought it for a fraction over a penny per package and
retailed it for a nickel. His band bus was painted
with "Lawrence Welk and His Honolulu Fruit
Orchestra". The band wore (and hated) white
full-sleeved shirts and paper flower leis when they
played. There was no air conditioning and when it was
hot and sticky the color in the leis would run and at the
end of the evening the members of the band would be wet and
every color of the rainbow! Financially, though,
there were big state-wide contests for Miss Honolulu Fruit
Gum, and contestants were often sponsored by service clubs
or the Chamber of Commerce, which was great for the band
and the music side of the business. Eventually,
interest in the contests diminished. Worse, ballroom
managers complained about the dance floors being knee-deep
in gum wrappers, and gum stuck to walls and floors, which
often had to be re-sanded and re-polished.
By the late 1930's the big-name bands
were in their prime. Lawrence Welk had great
admiration for Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey,
Guy Lombardo, Isham Jones, Paul Whiteman, Duke Ellington,
Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Jan Garber, Orrin Tucker, Russ
Morgan, Woody Herman, Glen Gray and Hal Kemp. Welk
once drove over 400 miles from Big Springs, Texas, to
Dallas just to get a "close-up listen" to Kemp's brass and
reed sections, which "played with almost machine-like
precision". It was not lost on Welk that all the
orchestra's of the day had descriptive names.
Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians
played "The Sweetest Music This Side of Heaven".
Wayne King was "The Waltz King". Shep Fields had
"Rippling Rhythm" (and featured the accordion).
Lawrence Welk admired Red Nichols and His Five
Pennies. He saw how Cab Calloway and Louie Armstrong
captivated dance crowds for 8-9 minutes at a time, instead
of the traditional 3-4 minute band arrangement. These
people were the "musical heroes" of their day, drawing
enormous crowds. Welk wanted one more chance at the
big-time. He got his first break with a long-running
stand at the St. Paul Hotel in Minnesota, in 1937, and had
a nightly radio broadcast from the hotel over KTSP.
This led to a booking at the William Penn Hotel in
Pittsburgh, where they were to open "at the stroke of
midnight on New Year's Eve in 1938, in the exclusive
Italian Terrace, the finest and most expensive room in the
hotel".
The reviews were more than favorable
and the public responded. There were 3 nationwide
broadcasts a day from the hotel over WCAE, an outlet of the
Mutual-Don Lee Network. Fan mail poured in and Welk's
radio announcer, Phil David, pointed out the specific
descriptive references to his music; that it sounded
"sparkling", "light", "effervescent", "bubbly", and
"happy". Phil summed it up for Lawrence and
declared: "They're saying that dancing to your music
is like sipping champagne. You've got yourself some
Champagne Music!" And, that's how "the Champagne
Music of Lawrence Welk" came to be.
What about the original theme?
Lawrence Welk had written a song to celebrate his daughter
Shirley's birth, "You're My Home Sweet Home". It was
a slow, sweet legato ballad, a "kind of hymn to my
daughter". When he played this at a much faster temp,
with a few added runs and frills, the result "was a light,
frothy piece which seemed to suit our musical style
perfectly". But, the title wasn't right, so Welk had
a contest to give the song a new name. A Pittsburgh
patron suggested "Bubbles in the Wine". Getting the
"popping cork sound" was another matter. Opening a
real bottle was never the same way twice and too difficult
for the right timing while playing the song. Welk
solved the problem by sticking his finger in his mouth and
popping it out with a "whoosh". He later said:
"I may not play the accordion as well as Myron Floren, but
I play a champagne bottle much better than he does."
Thirty-three years later, in November,
1971, the first season of shows on the Lawrence Welk
Network of more than 200 TV stations was well
underway. There were 2 stations in Alaska and 3 in
Hawaii. About 96% of the TV homes in America - some
59 million television homes - had access to these
shows and the accordion. Virtually, 90% of the stations
broadcast the show on Saturday night; about 5% on Sunday;
and the remainder on other days. All stations
telecast the same program each week. Don Fedderson
Productions sent 45 master-tape copies to as many stations,
which copied them and sent them on to other stations in the
cycle. The master tapes were returned to Fedderson
for subsequent re-use. There were 32 new
one-hour programs, and 20 were selected for re-runs to
complete a 52-week schedule.
There was no purchase price
involved. Stations simply contracted to telecast each
of the 52 shows each week at an agreed-upon time and
day. Each program contained 4 minutes of commercials
from national sponsors, along with more local-sponsor time
during the station break, about 30 minutes into each
show. Local sponsors constituted the station profits,
while the national commercials underwrote the production
and distribution costs. (This feat of syndication was
accomplished nearly a decade "ahead" of today's satellite
technology, which enables the overwhelming amount of
programming that is seen on scores of cable television
channels.)
The national sponsors which followed
the Lawrence Welk Network included J.B. Williams Company -
Aqua Velva, Sominex, etc.; the Dodge Division of Chrysler
Corporation; Block Drug Company - Polident, Tegrin Shampoo,
etc.; and Ocean Spray - Cranberry Juice, Jelly, etc.
The sponsors' local dealers were anxious to take advantage
of the Welk shows' appearing on local stations, and this
created window display streamers, in-store placards and
shared portions of newspaper ads. Ran-Wood's newest
Lawrence Welk Album in the Fall of 1971 was "Lawrence Welk
Plays Jerome Kern & Other Great Composers". A
complimentary album was sent to all Welk Network TV
stations, and, once again, local record dealers were
cooperating with window and in-store displays about the
broadcasts.
Additional promotions included radio
affiliates of the Welk TV outlets, or other local radio
station contacts; getting local viewers tickets to the Los
Angeles tapings of the shows; toy bubble machines for use
on local stations' children's programs or for contest
prizes; Mayoral Proclamations of "Lawrence Welk Week" in
the network TV stations' communities; Lawrence Welk phone
interviews; Hollywood Palladium tickets ("musical home" of
the Champagne Music Maker throughout his TV years) for
the local TV outlets' "favorite local people"'; full-color
fact-finders called the "Music Maker Personal Data Guide"
which gave complete, compact and up to the minute
information on Lawrence Welk and all of his TV Music makers
and Performers (!); fan mail (a database of 250,000 people
maintained by the Welk Offices, culled from mail sent to
stations all over the country, and which helped to
determine some of the shows' program content); and personal
appearances.
Every week at least 6-10 of Lawrence
Welk's most popular performers, i.e. Bobby (Burgess) and
Cissy (King), Sandi (Griffiths) and Salli (Flynn),
Dick Dale, Bob Ralston, Joe Feeney, Jim Roberts...and Myron
Floren, would fly all over the country on personal
appearance concert performances for all types of
organizations and events. The one most in demand,
logging an average of more than 150,000 air miles each
year, was "quiet-mannered, fast-fingered accordionist"
Myron Floren. He was also Welk's "right arm in the
band administration department". His musicianship and
dependability were legendary. Hired on the spot by
Lawrence Welk in St. Louis in 1950, while both were there
on separate engagements, Floren maintained an
association with the Welk Organization for 55 years
until his death in July, 2005.
How were the TV programs
produced? Virtually all of the musical numbers,
except for a few, were pre-recorded to eliminate the need
for overhead mic booms, which cannot be used for long-shot
production numbers. Lawrence Welk emphatically
believed that his was essentially a "sound" show. If
the sound was not excellent in quality, it failed to live
up to the televiewer and his expectations. Each
switch of the camera angles occurred at a particular
bar-break, so that the music and the visual actions had a
continuous, unceasing flow.
Thirty-five years later millions of
Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) TV viewers continue to
enjoy programs from 26 seasons of The Lawrence Welk Show,
which originally were aired from 1955 to 1981.
Lawrence Welk, March 11, 1903 - May 17,
1992, whose "earliest clear memory is of crawling across
the floor of our sod farmhouse toward my father, who was
smiling and holding out his accordion", said: "All of
the wonderful things that have happened to me in my
life-time more than justify my strong belief in our
American system, and my faith in our country's great future
- the future of a beautiful community and a wonderful
country which has given me so much more than I ever dreamed
of achieving."
Sources for this article: Don
Fedderson Productions Syndication Division, J.L. Kaufman,
Director of Public Relations - materials sent to this
writer in November, 1971, for a paper in a Communications
Course of his Senior year at Murray State University,
Murray, KY; "Wunnerful, Wunnerful! The Autobiography of
Lawrence Welk", by Lawrence Welk with Bernice McGeehan,
Prentice Hall, 1971; and a "date check" from the Lawrence
Welk Chapter of "The Golden Age of the Accordion", Ronald
Flynn, Edwin Davison and Edward Chavez, Flynn Associates
Publishing Company, 1992. You can reach Jay Landers
at jllanders5214@msn.com
-- end --
|
Home About Me Lifetime Achievement Award My Bell Accordion My MIDI Module Sample Sounds In Japan Mantovani Tour Order FREE Newsletter here Articles about the Accordion and Accordionists Accordion Friends Contact Me |