Tanya Falan Welk (born May 4, 1948) is an American singer who 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 1955 t ...

'' from 1968 to 1977. Born and raised in Glendale,

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, Tanya began singing at age four at her uncle's

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

restaurant. As a teenager, she worked at

Disneyland Disneyland is a amusement park, theme park at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. It was the first theme park opened by the Walt Disney Company and the only one designed and constructed under the direct supervision of Walt Disney, ...

where she had her own band known as Tanya and the Thunderbirds. While in high school, she developed her skills with other instruments such as the

drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

cello The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

, bass and

xylophone The xylophone (; ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Each bar is an idiophone tuned to a pitch of a musical scale, whether pentatonic or heptatonic in the case of many African ...

in addition to singing. Tanya made her Welk show debut on New Year's Eve 1967, and shortly afterwards was made a regular member of the cast. A few months later in the summer of 1968, she also became a member of

Lawrence Welk Lawrence Welk (March 11, 1903 – May 17, 1992) was an American accordionist, bandleader, and television impresario, who hosted ''The Lawrence Welk Show'' from 1951 to 1982. The program was known for its light and family-friendly style, and the ...

's own family when she married his son Larry, Jr. The couple had two sons, Lawrence Welk, III (born 1970) and Kevin (born 1971). During her tenure on the show, she sang solo numbers and in many group numbers, pairing with Anacani as a duo and often as a trio with fellow Italian-American music makers Bob Lido and Charlie Parlato. Tanya also branched out in other areas of television, making guest appearances on

Jerry Lewis Jerry Lewis (born Joseph Levitch; March 16, 1926 – August 20, 2017) was an American comedian, actor, singer, filmmaker and humanitarian, with a career spanning seven decades in film, stage, television and radio. Famously nicknamed as "Th ...

' Labor Day Telethon and in 1971, guest starred on the

soap opera A soap opera (also called a daytime drama or soap) is a genre of a long-running radio or television Serial (radio and television), serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term ''soap opera'' originat ...

General Hospital ''General Hospital'' (often abbreviated as ''GH'') is an American daytime television soap opera created by Frank and Doris Hursley which has been broadcast on American Broadcasting Company, ABC since April 1, 1963. Originally a half-hour seria ...

''. In 1969, she recorded the album ''Let It Be Me'' which was released by

Ranwood Records Ranwood Records is an American record label started in 1968 by Randy Wood (after he left Dot Records) and Lawrence Welk. Lawrence Welk owned all of the recordings that he released on Dot as they were produced and manufactured by Teleklew Product ...

. She left the show in 1977, and two years later (1979) her marriage to Larry Welk ended. In 1980 she married former world champion motorcycle racer and racing team owner, Kenny Roberts.

External links

Welk Musical Family.com profile

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Falan, Tanya 1948 births Living people Musicians from Glendale, California American women singers American people of Italian descent Big band singers Lawrence Welk