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Johnny Neill,
Pianist And Arranger (1937-1940)
Neill Contributed To Lawrence Welk Theme Song "Bubbles In The Wine"
Johnny Neill was pianist, arranger and
musical director for Lawrence Welk from 1937 to 1940
where he composed "Bubbles In The Wine", which became
the Lawrence Welk theme song for many years to come.
Neill was born on June 14, 1914 as John
Kenneth Neill in Mound City, Missouri. When his
family moved to Scotts Bluff, Nebraska, Neill began
taking instrument lessons and played violin in the
high school orchestra.
Neill was playing
piano with a dance band in the depths of the Great
Depression when Lawrence Welk approached him at an
Omaha nightclub and offered him a job. Welk asked
Neill to write some musical arrangements for his
orchestra. When Neill completed the works for Welk,
he was offered $5,000, but he told the band leader
he'd be money ahead if he hired him as an arranger
which Welk did. On one afternoon following a
rehearsal for a show in Fairmont, Nebraska, Welk
asked Neill to write a theme song for the band.
Neill went to a back booth in a cafe and wrote
"Bubbles in the Wine," which became Lawrence Welk's
theme song. The music was later adapted with words
and credited to the famous composer Frank Loesser
(i.e. "Baby, It's Cold Outside"), Bob Calame and
Lawrence Welk.
Neill left the Lawrence Welk
Orchestra in 1940 and to serve as an Army sergeant
in the 12th Armored Division. During his service in
Germany, Neill won the Bronze Star for retrieving
pilfered film supplies from behind enemy lines.
After WWII
After the war, Neill set up his own orchestra.
From the late 1940s to the mid-1960s, Johnny
Neill's orchestra, and the trios and quartets
that replaced it when big- band music went out
of style, provided music at the popular Top of
the Park Ballroom at Denver's Park Lane Hotel.
Photographs of Neill's orchestra hang in the
Park Lane condominiums that replaced the hotel,
which was demolished in 1966. The orchestra also
performed in Colorado at the Brown Palace, the
Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs, the Stanley
Hotel in Estes Park, the Rainbow Ballroom, the
Trocadero Ballroom, the Denver Country Club,
Tivoli Gardens, the Lagoon Nightclub and Sky
Chef, a once-trendy restaurant at the old
Stapleton Airport. Neill married Lois Price in
Scotts Bluff, Nebraska who preceded him in
death. He later married Lois Mills, and the
couple gave organ concerts in Florida, Denver
and Wyoming, as well as for the local bank and
retirement home in Denton, Texas. He died Jan.
8, 2004 in Denton, Texas, at 89.
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