His session work also included Tijuana Brass with Herb Alpert, the Jackson Five, Frank Sinatra, Liberace, Eddie Fisher, Carol Burnett, Frank Zappa (“Freak Out!”), Bobby Darin, Bobbi Gentry, David Clayton Thomas, Elvis Presley, Neil Diamond and countless others. The gig occupied two days each week, giving him ample time to continue expanding his studio efforts, which eventually included work with noted arrangers Neal Hefti, Nelson Riddle, Don Costa, David Rose, Billy May, as well as Hoyt Curtin at the Hanna-Barbera animation studios. In ’59, he was auditioned to replace Buddy Merrill, who was leaving Lawrence Welk’s band to join the Army.
He replaced Barney Kessel on Jimmy Wakely’s weekly CBS radio show, and earned a spot as a regular in the studios. In the mid ’50s, he returned to Hollywood and began to focus on a career as a guitarist.
While in Seattle, he played in various bands and radio show and landed a position with Sheriff Jim “Texas” Lewis, who had a televised children’s show. He left Riverside for Seattle to enlist in the United States Coast Guard. At the young age of 15, he was borrowing his dad’s fiddle and attending jam sessions with various local bands and at 17 years old, he was playing shows with Foy Willing and the “Riders of the Purple Sage.” He became very proficient in jazz and its influence in Western swing music. In 1945, his father moved the family to Riverside, California where he attended school and graduated Riverside’s Polytechnic High School. He was 83.ĭad was born in Adams, North Dakota, Jan. My father, Neil LeVang, the noted studio guitarist whose list of credits includes hundreds of television and film dates as well as a 23-year career with the Lawrence Welk Orchestra, died at home, peacefully in his sleep on Jan.
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