Goodness knows how exactly it happened, but I found myself spending more than a half hour last night studying the greatness that was and is Lawrence Welk. Purely because of the Internet, I learned more about Lawrence Welk than I ever thought I’d need to know in my life. Including the fascinating fact that he was born in, and grew up in, North Dakota, but didn’t learn to speak English until he was 21 years old–so he was a natural born American, but only spoke German until he was an adult, which is why he had the accent.
Also, he was at one point considered the 2nd richest man in Hollywood (Bob Hope being the richest) because he smartly put most of his money in real estate and other investments. He started as a radio star, and moved right into television, recording no less than 29 seasons of his amazing show, which continues in syndication to this day on multiple PBS stations and apparently still has, as of 2009, a diehard fan following.
All this I’ve learned about a man whose music positively makes me cringe. Its sheer awfulness is simply awe-inspiring. I can barely comprehend people who think of it as good music. Yet something keeps pulling me back, just to appreciate its bizarre glory. The crowning moment of which may have been this:
Just. Can’t. Stop. Watching! Help me! Heeeelllllpppp mmeeeeee….
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The intertubes are to be used with caution. They can both be the source of great pleasure and great horror.
Like gerbils and blenders.
Some of his polkas are pretty darn good, IMO.
The man could play a mean accordion when he wanted to.
I grew up watching Welk with my parents, and no2 my daughters (aged 8 and 4) are fans through the PBS reruns.Â
Because of that, I also happened to spend some time researching him on the internet a year or so ago, and also found his story unexpectedly compelling.
It’s pretty simple for me. I used to hate Everything Welk but my young kids liked the show and I gradually realized that I did, too. A lot of people might not like what Welk played, but he and his band were the very best at playing it.
Heh it’s so true how the internet allows us to indulge crazy trivia obsessions like this one. I just recently looked up Johnny Horton’s history. I was quite surprised to find out he was college educated and instead chose to compose music. It did explain why I always liked his music, that level of deepness to the lyrics flowing underneath the supposedly happy exterior of the song.
Without the internet I probably wouldn’t have spent the time on something like that.
We do some work for his grandson, Larry Welk.
Larry’s a good guy.
Oh yeah, I’m with you on the internet weirdness thing too.
I came across an unfamiliar cooking term in an article a few weeks ago: “sous videâ€. I had no idea what they were talking about, so I googled and wikipediaed it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sous-vide
Now for the past two weeks, I’ve been consumed researching this stuff. I even built a hot water bath cooker from some parts I had lying around, and I cooked a steak with it last week!
Okay – I expected a lot of possible things when he introduced that singing couple. However, I did *not* expect "One Toke Over The Line".
I almost fell out of my chair. That was hilarious.
(Any bets whether or not those folks knew what a "toke" was?)
I know, I know! And did you catch Welk at the end? "A modern spiritual!" You can’t get more perfect than that! I defy you!
Absolutely with Shaun on this one. I find I can only very rarely hate music, there’s always some nugget in there that I can draw enough enjoyment from to make me at least more-or-less indifferent. In this song the talent on display, especially from the guy, is enough to make me appreciate the song. And yes, being that they’re all musicians in the 60s/70s, I’m quite sure they all knew what a toke was, even if their audience didn’t!
Achewood! That’s right, I’m watching your browsing history, jaymaster.
Brian, I never heard of achewood till you mentioned it here. Apparently, that’s a very  good guess though.   Looks like a site I need to check out…
This format is plagued with teh errors….
OK, I thought that guy looked familiar.   The fourth time I watched this, I finally figured out that the dude is Dick Dale. Holy Crap! DICK F’N DALE!  He is the undisputed father of surf rock, and a demi-god in his own right I’ve watched him in person 5 or 6 times, and he is goooood. Wow!
Jay: It’s a completely different Dick Dale. I’m 99.9% positive on that.
Dean, You are correct, and now you can be 100% sure.  I just found a reference to this particular Dick Dale. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0197674/
Yeah. I made exactly the same mistake myself a few years ago when I noticed that the Theme from Three’s Company was sung by Ray Charles. I was amazed. I knew Ray Charles had an amazingly flexible voice and liked all kinds of music that most people would never guess he was a fan of. But that just seemed SOOOO un-Ray.
Eventually I found out it was this other Ray Charles.
Wow. Maybe through one of those happenstances that only occur in the 21st century, Onstad was also inspired by the same thing you bumped into in this big ol’ weirdness cloud…
http://achewood.com/index.php?date=12152008
Close guesses seem to be the theme in this thread. :)
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