Jerry Burke (July 26, 1911 – February 13, 1965) was a musician who played the organ and

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 ...

for 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, te ...

orchestra from 1934 to 1965.

Biography

Born in

Marshalltown Marshalltown is a city in and the county seat of Marshall County, Iowa, United States, located along the Iowa River. It is the seat and most populous settlement of Marshall County and the 16th largest city in Iowa, with a population of 27,591 at ...

Iowa Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to the ...

; he spent most of his youth in

South Dakota South Dakota (; Sioux language, Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state in the West North Central states, North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Lakota people, Lakota and Dakota peo ...

; first in

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), and ...

, where he took up the pipe organ and taught piano. After playing with several other local bands, he joined Lawrence Welk's band in 1934 when the band consisted of only six people and was headquartered in Yankton. Jerry's career with the band spanned more than thirty years, from the one-nighters throughout the Midwest, at radio station WNAX, later in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

at the Aragon Ballroom and in

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most po ...

on television, first locally and later nationwide 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 1955 ...

on the

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

network, from 1934 to 1965, where he played

Hammond organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated s ...

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...

, celeste and piano. His talents with the

keyboard Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

instruments, such as the

Novachord The Novachord is an electronic musical instrument often considered the world's first commercial polyphonic synthesizer. All-electronic, incorporating many circuit and control elements found in modern synthesizers, and using subtractive synth ...

were a perfect fit to Welk's champagne music. He also recorded several solo albums of his work as well. In his later years, Jerry was absent from the show for nearly a year (1963–1964) due to ill health and would die in 1965 from

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

. Burke's replacement,

Bob Ralston Robert Howard Ralston (born July 2, 1938, in Upland, California) is an American pianist and organist who performed on television's ''The Lawrence Welk Show'' from 1963 until 1982, when the series ended. Career A native of Southern Califor ...

, would remain with the show for the remainder of its run.

References

External links

1911 births 1965 deaths People from Marshalltown, Iowa People from Aberdeen, South Dakota Musicians from South Dakota 20th-century American keyboardists Lawrence Welk 20th-century American pianists American male pianists 20th-century American male musicians {{US-pianist-stub