The Lawrence Welk Show Rare and Live Performances - Bootleg

The Lawrence Welk Show
Rare and Live Performances
featuring Pete Fountain

2008 - Bootleg Recording from original TV performances

1. Lady Be Good 2:31
Pete Fountain along with Johnny Klein, Buddy Hayes & Tiny Little Jr (1957)

2. I Want A Girl Just Like The Girl That Married Dear Old Dad 3:07
Lawrence`s son, Larry Jr directs the band in a dixieland number, featuring Pete Fountain at the clarinet (1958)

3. Round & Round 2:12
Featuring Pete Fountain on clarinet with Johnny Kline on drums, Buddy Hayes on bass and Big Tiny Little Jr on piano.(1957)

4. Dippermouth Blues 3:05
Featuring George Thow, trumpet; Pete Fountain, clarinet; Russ Klein, tenor sax; Jimmy Henderson, trombone; Big Tiny Little Jr., piano; Buddy Merril, guitar, Buddy Hayes, bass; and Johnny Kline, drums. (1958)

5. White Silver Sand 2:24
The Lennon Sisters featuring Pete Fountain (1957)

6. The Tiger Rag 2:02
Pete Fountain Soloist (1958)

7. Nobody's Sweetheart 2:05
Larry Hooper at piano and vocals, Pete Fountain at clarinet (1958)

8. Someday Sweetheart 2:08
Pete Fountain at clarinet (1958)

9. If I Had You 2:03
Pete Fountain at clarinet (1957)

Liner Notes:

For the first, these rare and exciting performances are now available on compact disc.

It was in the Fall of 1956 that three New Orleans musicians journeyed to the West Coast for the annual Gene Norman-Frank Bull Jazz Festival. They were veteran trumpet-man Al Hirt; a fourteen-year-old phenomenon on trumpet, Warren Luning, Jr.; and another veteran from the New Orleans jazz scene, clarinetist Pete Fountain. Among those in the audience that proceeded to flip over the playing of the New Orleans visitors was young Lawrence Welk, Jr. Forthwith he goes to the old man and says, "Dad, this you've gotta hear!" (Or words of similar import.) So Larry, Sr. put down his accordion, turned off the bubble-machine, and made the trip to the auditorium where the jazz bash was being held; and that night an idea was born. To wit: why not build a dixieland contingent from the Welk Orchestra around Pete Fountain, and feature him regularly, both at the dance sessions and on the weekly television broadcasts?

Thus it was that Pete Fountain left Al Hirt's band a few months after their return to New Orleans to accept an offer from Lawrence Welk that was (in Pete's words) "too good to turn down." Since joining the Lawrence Welk Orchestra as a featured soloist, Pete has taken advantage of the opportunity to study on the west coast - an opportunity which the mature Pete Fountain realized was a valuable one in keeping with his desire to grow musically. He is almost twenty-eight years old.

Although it is essentially the Welk Orchestra backing Pete in these performances, the arrangements are not of the "Champagne Music" style. Neither is it a jazz album.

Two years later he returned to jazz and New Orleans. As he puts it, "champagne and bourbon just don't mix" - but in two years he had become one of the most familiar names in American music, so the time had been well spent, well spent indeed!