Top songs of the 50's!!

From 1953: Muriel Smith sings "Hold Me, Kiss Me, Thrill Me"



Here is an oh-so wholesome (and cringeworthy) version of the same Muriel Smith and Mel Carter song. Many moons ago Lawrence Welk had a variety show on TV that made Mr. Rogers and Captain Kangaroo look like prurient porn. Norma Zimmer, for reasons unknown, was the Champagne Lady. Here she goaded her poor sons into dancing with her on TV, thereby solidifying an unwanted image as sissy mommy's boys to all their male classmates back in school.

If the first minute is unlistenable cut to where the music starts at 1:15. It's amazing how 4 violinists, a single viola and one cellist can sound like a small chamber orchestra. And where the heck did they get that harpsichord?
 
Here is an oh-so wholesome (and cringeworthy) version of the same Muriel Smith and Mel Carter song... Many moons ago Lawrence Welk had a variety show on TV ...Norma Zimmer, for reasons unknown, was the Champagne Lady.

It's a pity Welk didn't have Norma Zimmer sing "Hold Me, Kiss Me, Thrill Me" with his band. Lawrence Welk came to refer to his music as being played in the "champagne style" / "champagne music" after a dancer, who heard his band's music, declared it sounded "light and bubbly as champagne". In Welk's show he started to use a bubble machine to create bubbles as a visual prop for his champagne music. It was he who dubbed the female vocalist of his band the Champagne Lady. Whenever the band played a polka, or waltz, Welk would dance with the Champagne Lady. A number of women filled that position for a time before leaving Welk's show. Zimmer was the show's eighth Champagne Lady.
THE CHAMPAGNE LADIES

Until my next post - I'll "Hideaway" with the Four Esquires:

 
Not sure if this has been posted before, please forgive me if it has, (I may even have been the one).
While catching up on the latest series of Only Connect I was disappointed to see none of the contestants had heard of Max Bygraves.....

To right that wrong, here is his 1954, UK number 7 hit,

Gilly, Gilly, Ossenfeffer, Katzenellenbogen by the Sea