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Show rfirtiTi iim 1 n mi mi ni l 1 1 i BY LYN CONNELLY WHO'S TV's most popular band leader? Hardly anyone will i deny that it's that famed expo- I nent of "Champagne Music," the amiable 52-year old Lawrence Welk of ABC-TV . . . The Welk success story began with his birth . . . His father, Ludwig.Welk, an accomplished accordionist, had lied from his native Alsace-Lorraine in 1878 and settled on a'!, small farm in Strasburg, North Dakota . . . One of eight children, , Lawrence mastered the accordion I and at J5 was playing for com- 1 munity dance and church events. A few years later he brought together to-gether an "orchestra", consisting of only drums and an accordion and made his inaugural broadcast over Radio Station WNAX of Yankton, S. D. . . . Later he added a piano and saxophone and his group played under such names as "The Hotsy Totsy Boys," "Lawrence "Law-rence Welk and his Honolulu Fruit uum urcnesira- ana "me Biggest Big-gest Little Band In America." Although successful In the Da-kolas, Da-kolas, Lawrence desired to play a new kind of sweet dance music a tempo which was "gay and exciting, something sparkling and bubbling like champagne" ... To achieve his goal he enlarged his orchestra, Introduced new arrangements ar-rangements and in the 1930's successfully suc-cessfully barnstormed the country coun-try .. . The orchestra began to go big time In the late 1930's, making mak-ing major hotel engagements and short films and waxing hundreds of records ... A TV series in Southern South-ern California became so popular locally that it grew Into the present pres-ent national ABC-TV favorite, "The Lawrence Welk Show". Early in his career, Lawrence had married a Yankton hospital nurse, and they have three teenage teen-age children . . . The Welks live I in a charming Mediterranean-type J home near Los Angeles, and in 1 his spare time Lawrence reads, j plays golf and tends the garden. |