Johnny Zell
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Johnny Zell (born November 24, 1947, in Fort Benning, Georgia) is an American musician best known from television's The Lawrence Welk Show. His musical instrument is the trumpet.
Growing up in Los Angeles, California; he started out in music at an early age, starting first with the violin and later moving on to the trumpet. His first attempt to audition for Lawrence Welk came he was fifteen years old, when Welk's orchestra was playing at the Hollywood Palladium; when he asked if he can play a trumpet solo for him, the maestro, although impressed with his talent and moxie, thought that he was too young but told him to see him again when he was a bit older and had more experience.
After completing high school, Johnny played for the Freddy Martin and Russ Morgan bands before he got his draft notice to serve in the Army. During his time in the military he played for the NORAD band known as the Commanders along with future Welk musicians Dave Edwards and Richard Maloof. It was there, in early 1968 that his second chance to audition for Lawrence Welk came when Johnny was asked to do a television commercial for Army recruiting and part of the job was to do an interview for the Welk show and to play trumpet for the band. After his performance on that show, Lawrence, who was now impressed, hired him into the band upon his completion of his military service which was nine months away.
From 1968 until the show ended in 1982, Johnny was one of the show's most popular musicians, and was often featured in trumpet solos such as String of Pearls, At The Cross and Hot Lips. As a born-again Christian, he is also involved in the Gospel ministry pursuing both Christian and secular music doing many concert dates and making albums.
Today, he and his wife Laura, both live in Oregon. He is the father of four children.
