#Lawrence welk pennsylvania polka tv#

Lawrence wanted his own accordion not his fatherвЂ™s third generation button box that had traveled over Europe, the Atlantic, and had been passed down to his older brother. He used the time to learn and become proficient on the banjo and several other instruments. Lawrence was hospitalized for several weeks and homebound for seven months after being released. One was commandeered to cover the 75 miles to a hospital over the primitive dirt roads. In 1914 there were only a few automobiles in Strasburg. Well, times on that flatland farm were tough, and in the fourth grade his appendix ruptured tiny Strasburg was several miles away by wagon, where the only doctor said he needed immediate surgery. As he grew older, Lawrence harbored thoughts of leaving the farm and being a musician to escape the drudgery and hard work.Д«oth before and after finishing his chores on their pre-mechanical wheat farm (he became a champion wheat thrasher, probably from accordion practice), he practiced. Farming wheat by day, the long winter nights were passed with LawrenceвЂ™s family playing a concertina accordion and his mother singing along with relatives. For the first year or so the Welk family lived in a hole in the ground that was covered with an overturned wagon and slices of sod covering the structure while a woodframe house was built. A group of them settled in central North Dakota. Lawrence Welk was born in 1903 to German parents who, along with other relatives and friends who happened to be the wrong ethnicity, had been expelled from Strasberg, Russia by the Russian government in 1892. And to fully justify the motto of Carl Finch of Brave Combo: вЂњThe weather is always the opening act,вЂќ letвЂ™s go back to the year 1903 B.C. So where had Lawrence Welk been? Was he an overnight success? Hardly. Anyone interested in music has heard of the Dorsey Brothers, Duke Ellington, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, the Crosby Brothers, all these Big Band orchestra leaders who were contemporaries of Welk. He had been performing since he was a teenager.

#Lawrence welk pennsylvania polka tv#

Welk started his first TV show in 1951, at the age of 48. A plaque in the lobby of the Lawrence Welk Museum proclaims: вЂњA total of 10,300,000,000 people! (ThatвЂ™s 10.3 BILLION!) have tuned inвЂќ to the TV show.