Pete Fountain and Johnny Hodges were among the many instrumentalists who spent a good portion of their career in Welk's band. Like many other actors and musicians, he prevaricated and said instead that his ancestors came from Alsace, which (if one went back far enough) was strictly true.Īlthough his own accordion skills were considered weak, Welk was adept at recognizing talent in other musicians and (unlike his treatment of singers) he didn't mind paying for it. As for his ancestry, it was difficult at the time for any performer to admit that his parents had immigrated from Russia, even if they were (like Welk's) Volgadeutsch who had left decades before the Revolution. Stan Freberg's satire stung him into hiring an English tutor, but he soon found that his audience didn't want him to speak well they preferred his old accent, so he "forgot" his lessons while on the air. In reality Welk started out with a very strong accent and a poor grasp of English idiom, as his parents didn't speak English and his record at school (the only place he had heard English as a child) was spotty to poor.
Much of this belief arose from Welk's wavering accent, which seemed to be stronger on the show than in interviews, and his varying answers about his family's heritage. It was a popular belief in the 1970s that Welk was a "phony" - that his entire persona, including his difficulties with English and his apparent social conservatism, was a calculated ruse. (Gregory Hines later pointed out, though, that the Welk show was the only place on television where tap was shown at all.) The only black people to appear on the show were tap dancers, a fact decried by both blacks and whites at the time. His interpretation of "old-fashioned modesty" could sometimes seem outlandish even to a conservative of the time when the Lennon sisters began having families of their own, he devised bizarre stage sets to hide their lower bodies (behind fences, prams, kitchen counters, etc.) to prevent the audience from seeing that these devout Catholic married women were pregnant. Tastes in popular music changed, but Welk's show and his didn't corny and quaint even by the standards of The '50s, Welk kept his eponymous show on the straight and very narrow through the Sixties and Seventies and well into the Eighties, long past the time of rock and rebellion. (The stalker, believing himself to be Peggy Lennon's rightful husband, would eventually murder the father, which became another source of guilt for Welk and caused him to feel as if he was in loco parentis in some form for the girls.) The Lennons won, but only because Welk felt immense guilt over one of the sisters acquiring an unstable stalker after her appearances on the show. Lennon insisted they be paid as individuals. He also spent many years in a battle royale with the father/agent of the Lennon Sisters Welk wanted to pay them as a single act, whereas Mr. He famously fired one Champagne Lady for "showing too much leg", only relenting when fan mail poured in supporting the singer (whose offending outfit had been ridiculously modest even for the time). Years later, though, he used it as the title of his autobiography.) He was later parodied in MAD magazine and on Saturday Night Live and SCTV.Īlthough audiences knew him as the fatherly host with a quirky grasp of the language, he could be a stern taskmaster when dealing with performers.
(Freberg parodied Welk's poor English using the phrase "wunnerful, wunnerful", which Welk denied he'd ever said. Right from the beginning he found himself the target of satirists such as Stan Freberg, whose ferocious sendup of the bandleader hurt him.
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