Francis Scott (July 21, 1921 – October 5, 1995) was an American musician and arranger that was a member of the

Lawrence Welk Lawrence Welk (March 11, 1903 – May 17, 1992) was an American accordionist, bandleader, and television impresario, who hosted the ''The Lawrence Welk Show'' from 1951 to 1982. His style came to be known as "champagne music" to his radio, tele ...

orchestra. His instruments were the

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

and the

harpsichord A harpsichord ( it, clavicembalo; french: clavecin; german: Cembalo; es, clavecín; pt, cravo; nl, klavecimbel; pl, klawesyn) is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a trigger mechanism ...

Biography

Francis Scott, Jr was born in Fargo,

North Dakota North Dakota () is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the Native Americans in the United States, indigenous Dakota people, Dakota Sioux. North Dakota is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north a ...

. He was the youngest of three sons of Frank Roy Scott, Sr. and Alice Wilson Scott. He first took up the piano at age eight, and by the time he was twelve, he led his first band and started to arrange songs. He originally attended North Dakota Agricultural College after high school, but after a year he left when he decided to pursue a career in music. He was the music director at radio station WDAY in Fargo from 1944 to 1956 where he scored over 2,500 arrangements for the station while composing music for community theater groups and conducting local ice shows. In 1956, bandleader Lawrence Welk asked him to join his orchestra and his nationwide television show. He appeared on ''

The Lawrence Welk Show ''The Lawrence Welk Show'' is an American televised musical variety show hosted by big band leader Lawrence Welk. The series aired locally in Los Angeles for four years, from 1951 to 1955, then nationally for another 16 years on ABC from 195 ...

'' playing piano and harpsichord during his tenure on the show until 1969, when he was replaced by the late Bob Smale. He also worked behind the scenes of the Welk show as an arranger, assisted the production staff and furnished programming ideas. Scott also arranged thousands of songs and recorded albums in his own right for

Coral Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and sec ...

and

Dot Records Dot Records was an American record label founded by Randy Wood (record producer), Randy Wood and Gene Nobles that was active between 1950 and 1978. The original headquarters of Dot Records were in Gallatin, Tennessee. In 1956, the company moved ...

. He left the show and then moved back to Fargo with his wife, where he continued to work in music, organized a big band, and taught a course at

North Dakota State University North Dakota State University (NDSU, formally North Dakota State University of Agriculture and Applied Sciences) is a public land-grant research university in Fargo, North Dakota. It was founded as North Dakota Agricultural College in 1890 as t ...

for a year plus continued to arrange music. By the late 1970s, he moved back to

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

and formed his own

orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...

, which he led until he died in October 1995. By that time, he lived in

Palm Desert Palm Desert is a city in Riverside County, California, United States, in the Coachella Valley, approximately east of Palm Springs, northeast of San Diego and east of Los Angeles. The population was 48,445 at the 2010 census. The city has been ...

and had arranged more than seven thousand songs in his entire career.

Personal life

Scott was married to his first wife, Janette Daniels Scott from 1940 until her death in 1979; they had four children, Douglas, Sally, Todd and Frank. His second wife, Audrey Roseland Scott (1924-2008), worked for Scott when they were at WDAY in Fargo during the 1940s. They were married from 1993 until his death two years later.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Scott, Frank 1921 births People from Fargo, North Dakota Musicians from North Dakota 1995 deaths American music arrangers Lawrence Welk 20th-century American pianists American male pianists 20th-century American male musicians