Today marks the 53rd anniversary of the debut of "The Lawrence Welk Show," which is still airing in reruns on WLIW (and many other PBS stations). I am a big-time, Johnny-come-lately fan of the show, something that I am not ashamed to admit and in fact have said so many times in the pages of the Newsday.
Anyway, the idea that Mr. Welk was hostile to rock and roll is not 100% true. And I'm not just talking about the time his clean-cut crew performed Brewer and Shipley's 1971 druggie hit. "One Toke Over the Line." (The video briefly became an internet sensation last year.)
In this clip from 1963, the surf band The Chantays, whose "Pipeline" is one of the coolest r&r instrumentals of all time, performed on the show. Well, actually from the looks of it, they're instument-syncing, but the point is, they were here.
No indication whether Myron Floren played "Wipeout," but the indifferent expressions on the faces of the Welk band speak volumes.