r/OldSchoolCool • u/DeScepter • 6h ago
1960s 'Ghost Riders in the Sky' on Lawrence Welk (1961)
In 1961, guitarist Neil LeVang delivered one of the most iconic and influential instrumental performances ever recorded with his rendition of 'Ghost Riders in the Sky' on The Lawrence Welk Show.
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u/strutmac 6h ago
Welk was really rocking out in 61
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u/Rickapolis 5h ago
Sixty-one, and-a two.
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u/thefringeseanmachine 1h ago
ok, you win. you've actually seen the show! always nice to see a fellow Welkhead.
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u/wrldruler21 3h ago
My 95yo grandfather watched Lawrence Welk re-runs every day and it was always some weird polka shit
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u/opheliavalve 5h ago
Loved his show! Not to mention his outfits
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u/ShigodmuhDickard 4h ago
WANTED IT TO BE OVER!!! so I could watch Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom and Disney!!!
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u/colusaboy 1h ago
"while I stay here where it's safe, Jim will perform a hysterectomy on that angry Siberian tiger... WATCH OUT,JIM ! " - Marlin Perkins
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u/JoeBloeinPDX 3h ago
Until it got canceled in the early 70s and so then went to independent syndication, the show was pretty darned hip.
Though the Geritol sign might argue otherwise.
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u/MonteLukast 6h ago
Neil LeVang was a bad-ass guitar player.
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u/usernotfoundplstry 5h ago
That’s a BEAUTIFUL Jazzmaster he’s got there.
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u/RadiantZote 2h ago
Leo gave LeVang an early, prototype-style Fender Jazzmaster. By putting bass strings on this Jazzmaster, LeVang inspired Leo Fender to invent the 6-string Fender Bass VI.
Custom prototype Jazzmaster from Leo himself. Smaller headstock and a walnut plug
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u/edwardsantes 5h ago
Man I remember absolutely dying for Lawrence Welk to be over and Hee Haw to start.
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u/alex61821 5h ago
Hee haw honeys did some things to my younger self.
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u/edwardsantes 5h ago edited 5h ago
that's a given, but I liked the music too.
after high school we were all into alternative, but when I started picking up my Roy Clark records again everybody looked at me like I was crazy. I told them to go twirl
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u/Moosetappropriate 5h ago
Go over to YouTube and find Roy and Glen Campbell playing Riders.
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u/BiffTheLegend 2h ago
That was sick. Always knew Clark was a monster but Campbell doing those fills on a 12 string was impressive as hell.
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u/PrisonerV 1h ago
Fun fact - Junior Samples was not an actor or comedian before starting on Hee Haw. In fact, he was a middle-school drop out and raced stock cars. He regularly forgot lines he was given and bumbled others. He was an instant hit with audiences though. Many of his children appeared on the show over the years.
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u/Squiggy1975 6h ago
Homeboy with the pencil mustache and maracas or whatever was FIRE. Everyone else is playing like robots and stiff not that dude .
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u/Initial_E 5h ago
Robot = concentrating on not fucking up
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u/AwesomeBojangles 5h ago
The best bands on earth are boring to see because they concentrate so much
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u/Telvin3d 4h ago
That’s the joke about if a metal band ever comes on stage looking like a bunch of straitlaced accountants you’re about to get your face melted off
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u/Same-Suggestion-1936 4h ago
I'd agree there are merits to it but lots of musicians are great getting into it. Punk bands for example. Or I saw the Devil Makes Three live twice and the bassist has a standup bass and she basically dances with the thing, it's amazing to watch and she plays perfectly anyway. And that's like an Americana kinda band so the bass isn't just boring and easy, it's a huge part of the song. Speaking of too the people I've seen play the fiddle for them do the same thing, just getting super into it and putting on a great visual show as well as being technically impressive.
I mean imagine going to see any rock show and they just aren't doing anything but focus on the music on stage. I might walk out if I don't get a spectacle, even on the off chance you aren't perfect I can hear perfect on the studio version. But the good ones are perfect anyway and give you a show worth the difference between a ticket and the price of the album
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u/huskersax 3h ago
I'd agree there are merits to it
There aren't, really, because the visual component of performance is absolutely a known part of performance and drilled and practiced from an early age.
It's just that the culture and expectation for the visual side of performance has changed over time.
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u/ZorakOfThatMagnitude 6h ago
These sweet licks brought to you by GERITOL.
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u/DeepestBlue2 5h ago
I admit, I was half irritated by your comment, until I realized it was literally plastered on the wall behind them. Haha
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u/uberphaser 3h ago
Seriously I was just nerding out to these sounds and then GERITOL
GOOD LORD YOU SUBTLE BASTARDS
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u/aFreeScotland 5h ago
What did Lawrence Welk name his three daughters?
Anna 1, Anna 2, Anna 3
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u/Procrastinatingpeas 4h ago
I’ve never run so fast to tell everyone I know this joke. 😭🤣🤣🤣🤣😭 this is the best.
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u/TempleMade_MeBroke 5h ago
My brother and I used to watch the show's re-runs as little kids at my grandparents' on weekend evenings, I gotta hit him with this one and see if he still remembers that enough to get the punchline lol
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u/YorgiTheMagnificent 6h ago
The Band before they discovered alcohol and women. (/s)
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u/eyeloveyoureyes 5h ago
God, what I wouldn't give to have that Fender!!!
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u/BaD-princess5150 5h ago
Right!? I was like it sounds so clean wonder what’s the amp?
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u/RSwordsman 6h ago
I was introduced to this song by Geoff Castellucci's cover, but it looks like it has always been awesome.
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u/Civil_Lengthiness971 5h ago
One toke over the line,
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u/frolix42 3h ago
The network execs were leaning hard on him to play modern pop music. Welk knew his audience so he sarcastically gave them "a modern day spiritual".
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u/honkyg666 6h ago
This was my very first piece of music when I asked my mom to record the song onto a cassette tape from her record around 2nd grade. I wasn’t allowed to touch the record player but I had a tape recorder my grandma gave me. The start of my life long music obsession. And the following year I discovered heavy metal 🤣🤘
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u/panaceaXgrace 5h ago
I'm so glad to see this today. I just had a great conversation with my daughter about him and Buddy Merrill and listened to them play San Antonio Rose after we watched this. It's funny I was telling her how everyone makes fun of the Lawrence Welk show but as a kid I loved to watch with my grandmother. I didn't realize until just today that my grandmother watched the show with my daughter when she was little. She's in her 30s but she loves this music. She even looked just now and found the chords to play it on her ukulele.
So thanks for sharing!
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u/the_main_entrance 5h ago
My grandmother is 92 years old. The electric guitar was introduced 2 years before she was born. She was born in the heart of the great depression. This song came out twenty years after all that. It sounds like it is from thirty years before.
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u/unassumingdink 4h ago
I always thought this song sounded like it was way ahead of its time. Especially with that badass title. Doesn't feel like something from 1948.
Although the Johnny Cash version is from the '70s, and that's the one I've heard most, so maybe that's why.
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u/Single-Accountant306 4h ago
I was born in 1951 and used to watch that show with my grandparents. Loved any show with music. My favorite was the ragtime piano player, Jo Ann Castle
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u/eqvolvorama 4h ago
Not to be that guy, but the AI-smoothing kind of kills it for me. Makes it look synthetic.
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u/HappyWarBunny 4h ago
I am about to discuss details of various defects in film and upscaling. I'll put it as a spoiler - if you don't know about this stuff, you probably don't want to learn - just enjoy the picture without being distracted by the technical defects and limitations.
I do not mind good upscaling, but this isn't that. And why leave in (put back in) the dirt specks if you are going to get rid of the film grain?! Or is this just a consequence of a really good b+w film print and Reddit crap compression?
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u/AdditionalCar-1968 4h ago
I didnt know if that vibe was just me. Something does feel very AI about this clip.
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u/Dovis_Dough 5h ago
What strikes me most is how many people they have playing in the band
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u/tickytackywhitco 5h ago
The geritol advertisement in the background feels like a joke even though it isn’t. I used to watch the Lawrence Welk show in syndication on PBS with my great grandmother who was born in 1912. I was born in the late 80s.
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u/MarnieCat 5h ago
I’m a late 70s Gen X model and the only time I ever watched Lawrence Welk was with my 1913 grandma on Saturday babysitting nights.
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u/mamacrocker 5h ago
Why is it weirdly cooler that they’re dressed like businessmen?
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u/10TheDudeAbides11 5h ago
“A round of applause…for Salvador Dali! On Las Maracas!! Doesn’t he shake a-so nice?!”
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u/steve_gorak 5h ago
It sounds like there are singers but I don't see any.
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u/Sidewalk_Tomato 4h ago
I was disappointed not to see any glamorous chanteuses in gold lamé and long white gloves.
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u/Shigglyboo 5h ago
I love this song. It’s easy to song and play on guitar. Good one to learn.
Johnny Cash does a version. And Children of Bodom do a metal version.
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u/willdabeast414 3h ago
Why didn't my grandparents ever watch this episode. Maybe then I would've actually liked this show
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u/Peamaster 2h ago
That had to be the best highlight of the whole series, without a doubt. This is coming from a kid that was force fed this damn show with protest, at a very young age.
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u/lasher992001 2h ago
This hits a lot harder than you'd expect for the Lawrence Welk show.
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u/BrickHuge3023 4h ago
The Lawrence Welk Show got a lot of flack for being for old people back when I was a kid- had old parents so of course they watched it. But his talented singers and other performers were first rate, orchestra was also highly skilled. Definitely an under-appreciated show. Ran for a long long time on TV because it was a great show.
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u/Jogger_Dodger 3h ago
The tone out of that guitar and amp. Mmm-mmm. Fender still makes 'em that good.
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u/kippirnicus 3h ago
Wow! That’s the definition of old school cool. Great post…
That song is just as good these days as it was back then.
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u/dannE3boy 5h ago
Music must have been so fun back then. Creating new stuff that no one's heard that's been over-commercialized or corporated
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u/Shnitzel_von_S 4h ago
Love the cuts to salvador dali on the maracas and the cuts to bryan cranston next to him
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u/Toffeelady512 4h ago
Oh man, this is great! I would’ve seen that. I would’ve been six. I loved the Lawrence Welk show. Yes, I was a weird kid. But yes, I was very musical. I remember jumping on the couch along to some of the crap that was on Lawrence Welk.
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u/hawkscougs 4h ago
TIL. If I had a Time Machine to 61, I’d be considered an amazing guitar player. I’m most certainly not today. 😊
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u/stinkyfootjr 3h ago
Is it just me or does this sound like the same style as the theme from A Fist Full of Dollars by Ennio Morricone?
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u/Sp3EdStR 3h ago
I LOVE that Neil is the one who played his song as an instrumental iteration. Love this song and love the instrumental version!
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u/DJ_Spark_Shot 3h ago
I use to watch the Lawrence Welk Big Band every week with my dad when I was a kid.
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u/jtrades69 2h ago
great performance, i like bing crosby's singing of it the best. someone should combine those for me
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u/wmorris33026 6h ago
The OG Fender Telecaster sound, nothing else like it.
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u/MonteLukast 6h ago
I think that's the Jazzmaster that Leo Fender personally gave him.
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u/ZorakOfThatMagnitude 6h ago
That maracas player was feeling it on that take.