Meantime, a tabloid-worthy tragedy struck the family. The Jimmy Durante Presents the Lennon Sisters Hour lasted only one season. In 1969 they launched their own show, on which they co-starred with Jimmy Durante.
By the late 60s, they were ready to break out. The Lennon Sisters were kids when they started out with Welk, and he always paid them union scale. They were what they were, a white, squeaky-clean quartet of white Catholic girls. Unlike similar throwback acts ( The Osmonds are a good example) the Lennon Sisters never ventured into more contemporary sounds. The girl groups of the late 50s and early 60s were acts like The Supremes and the Ronettes - groups with a beat, passion and attitude. I need hardly remind you that this was the rock and roll era, which only got more and more extreme as the years rolled on. Their one major charting single, “Tonight You Belong to Me”, which went to #15 in 1956, was a 30 year old Billy Rose tune. I call them “peculiar”, of course, because they were an extreme throwback to earlier times, the sort of sister act that had once characterized vaudeville and old time radio, although without the jazzy feeling that most pop groups had had even in those earlier eras.
They secured an audition and Welk loved them so much he made them a key part of his show for over a dozen years. 1946), were high school friends of Welk’s son. They made their television debut there in 1955, and were regulars on the program through 1968. Those old enough to remember the peculiar phenomenon of The Lennon Sisters at all are apt to associate them almost entirely with The Lawrence Welk Show.
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