Rabbi Sol, Dewey, you are my kindred spirits--I watched the Lawrence Welk Show, growing up, back when it was still on ABC--it was real music, played by real (and really great) musicians, and the un-hippness of it all was really the best--

Anyone who thinks that there was anything second rate about the music can't hear very well--the band could play anything--George Cates, the longtime musical director, had played in sweet bands during the thirties and forties and was an executive at Coral Records in the 50's where he produced a number of hits for the Andrews Sisters, among others--a lot of the players had worked with the top bands and/or were LA studio musicians--

I loved it when the gave the "Champagne" treatment to a song--which on many occasions, slipped into true musical dementia-- occasionally, it seemed clear that the Welk folks were aware of it--

I heard the guys in "Brave Combo" talk about how the used to listen to all this stuff because they thought it was so far out that it was funny--and in time realized that they actually liked it better than the music that was supposed to be cool--me too--