light rock and roll to be performed.) After two years and a string of short-lived vocalists, Norma Zimmer was hired, starting in 1960. Zimmer stayed with Welk for the rest of the show's run. Another example of being bound by Welk's set of morals was famed clarinetist Pete Fountain, renowned for his New Orleans-style jazz. He was a valued member of the Welk cast, who was rumored to have quit when Welk objected to his efforts to "jazz up" the Christmas standard "Silver Bells" on the 1958 Christmas show. In an interview, Fountain admitted he left Welk because "Champagne and bourbon don't mix." (The departure was amicable; Fountain would reappear in Welk reunion shows after the show ended.) Welk relied on fan letters to tell him who was popular and who was not. Often, performers who received a positive reaction were prominently featured on future shows, while those who did not meet muster with the audience saw their solo opportunities diminish and sometimes were eventually let go. Among the performers that were wildly popular with audiences during the years it was on ABC were The Lennon Sisters, Joe Feeney, Steve Smith, Larry Hooper, Jo Ann Castle and electric guitarist Buddy Merrill, just to name a few. Lynn Anderson, Clay Hart, and Ava Barber used the show as a springboard to launch their own successful careers as country music solo artists. At the height of the show's popularity, members of the Musical Family were featured in several celebrity tabloid magazines alongside other mainstream television and movie stars. Tap dancer Arthur Duncan became the second African-American to appear regularly on a sponsored television variety program, and the first since 1951, when he was hired as a permanent music maker by Welk in 1964. (The first was Teddy Wilson, a member of Benny Goodman's orchestra who appeared along with the orchestra on the short-lived Star Time throughout its 1950–51 run.) Duncan was already marginally famous through his appearances on The Betty White Show in 1954. Producers and directors James Hobson (also known as Jim Hobson) served longest as producer (1962–1982) and director of The Lawrence Welk Show. Hobson died on April 26, 2013, in Santa Monica Hospital, California. Episode status The surviving episodes from the first 10 seasons on ABC, which began in 1955, exist today as black and white kinescopes or videotape, as the show was broadcast live for the first 10