Welk’s parents were immigrants from Alsace-Lorraine who spoke only German to the nine children they raised on their farm outside Strasburg, North Dakota.
As polarizing in his own folksy way as Elvis Presley was in his, the inimitable Lawrence Welk-creator and King of “Champagne Music”-was born in rural North Dakota on March 11, 1903. But for the children and grandchildren watching along with them, it seemed more like the “television show that time forgot.” The man at this generational flash point was an accordion-playing, Alsatian-accented bandleader who kicked off each number with “A vun and a two” and ended with a cheery “Wunnerful, wunnerful.” Although he delighted the older crowd, youngsters were usually not so enamored.
For the generation that grew up on the big bands of the 30s and 40s, The Lawrence Welk Show was a blessed island of calm in a world gone mad for rock and roll, and it aired like clockwork every Saturday night from 1955 to 1982.
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