Editing Lawrence Welk (section)

==Early career==
On his 21st birthday, having fulfilled his promise to his father, Welk left the family farm to pursue a career in music. During the 1920s, he performed with various bands before forming an orchestra. He led [[big band]]s in [[North Dakota]] and eastern [[South Dakota]], including the Hotsy Totsy Boys and the Honolulu Fruit Gum Orchestra.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.redhotjazz.com/welk.html|title=Lawrence Welk's Novelty Orchestra|website=Redhotjazz.com|access-date=April 6, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081226024028/http://www.redhotjazz.com/welk.html|archive-date=December 26, 2008|url-status=dead}}</ref> His band was also the station band for the popular radio programming [[WNAX (AM)|WNAX]] in [[Yankton, South Dakota]]. The Lawrence Welk Orchestra scored an immediate success and began a daily radio show, which lasted from 1927 to 1936. The radio show led to many well-paying engagements for the band throughout the midwestern states. In 1927, he graduated from the [[MacPhail School of Music]] in [[Minneapolis]], Minnesota.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.macphail.org/history.html|title=MacPhail History|website=Macphail.org|access-date=April 6, 2009|archive-date=April 20, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090420073554/http://www.macphail.org/history.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>
[[File:Young lawrence welk.JPG|thumb|180px|Welk in Chicago, 1944]]

Although many associate Welk's music with a style quite separate from [[jazz]], he recorded several jazzy sides; in November 1928 for [[Gennett Records]], based in [[Richmond, Indiana]]: "Spiked Beer" and "Doin' The New Low Down" and in 1931 in [[Grafton, Wisconsin]] for [[Paramount Records]] "Smile Darn Ya, Smile".<ref>[[Brian Rust|Rust, Brian]] (2002). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=_J9HAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA1812 Jazz and Ragtime Records (1897–1942): L–Z, index]''. Mainspring Press. p. 1812. Accessed July 30, 2016.</ref>

During the 1930s, Welk led a traveling [[big band]] specializing in dance tunes and "sweet" music (during this period, bands performing light-melodic music were referred to as "sweet bands" to distinguish them from the more rhythmic and assertive "hot" bands of artists like [[Benny Goodman]] and [[Duke Ellington]]). Initially, the band traveled around the country by car. They were too poor to rent rooms, so they usually slept and changed clothes in their cars. The term ''champagne music'' was derived from an engagement at the [[William Penn Hotel]] in [[Pittsburgh]], after a dancer referred to his band's sound as "light and bubbly as champagne." The hotel also lays claim to the original "bubble machine," a prop left over from a 1920s movie premiere. Welk described his band's sound, saying, "We still play music with the champagne style, which means light and rhythmic. We place the stress on melody; the chords are played pretty much the way the composer wrote them. We play with a steady beat so dancers can follow it."<ref>{{cite news|title=Champagne Style Music Making of Lawrence Welk|publisher=Ellensburg Daily Record|date=June 6, 1960|author=Thomas, Bob}}</ref>

Welk's big band performed across the country, but particularly in the Chicago and [[Milwaukee]] areas. In the early 1940s, the band began a 10-year stint at the [[Trianon Ballrooms|Trianon Ballroom]] in Chicago, regularly drawing crowds of several thousand. His orchestra also performed frequently at the [[Roosevelt Hotel (New York)|Roosevelt Hotel]] in New York City during the late 1940s. In 1944 and 1945, Welk led his orchestra in 10 "[[Soundies]]", three-minute movie musicals considered to be the early pioneers of [[music videos]].<ref>[[Scott MacGillivray]] and [[Ted Okuda]], ''The Soundies Book'', iUniverse, 2007, p. 277-278.</ref>
[[File:Lawrence Welk war bond officials.jpg|thumb|Lawrence Welk with War Bond officials during a {{Circa|1943}} event in Chicago.]]
Welk collaborated with Western artist [[Red Foley]] to record a version of [[Spade Cooley]]'s "Shame on You" in 1945. The record (Decca 18698) was number 4 to Cooley's number 5 on ''Billboard'''s September 15 "Most Played Juke Box Folk Records" listing.<ref>''Billboard'', September 15. p. 29.</ref> From 1949 through 1951, the band had [[radio programming]] on [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]], sponsored by [[Miller High Life]], "The Champagne of Bottled Beer."

In addition to his activities as a performing artist, Welk edited a course of modern music for the piano accordion which included arrangements by [[John Serry Sr|John Serry]] for the U. S. School of Music in New York City in 1953,<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=yDkcAQAAMAAJ&q=John+Serry "Library of Congress- Music and Phonorecords Catalog 1953", p. 881 - "U. S. School of Music" - John Serry arranger, Lawrence Welk editor on google.com/books]</ref> The school was founded in 1898 and was described years later as the oldest home study music school chartered by the Board of Regents in New York State with a total worldwide enrollment of over one million students.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=U1TWAAAAMAAJ&dq=U.S.+School+of+Music&pg=RA1-PA739 "Statement of George R. Kemp, President U.S. School of Music" -The United States Congress Senate Committee on Post Office and Civil Service - 1962 p. 739 on Google Books]</ref>