Larry LaPrise (Roland Lawrence LaPrise) (3 January 1914 - 5 April 1996) at one point held the U.S. copyright for the song Do The Hokey Pokey.
LaPrise was born in Detroit, Michigan. He wrote the song in the early 1940s for the après-ski crowd at a club in Sun Valley, Idaho. The song was first recorded by his group the Ram Trio (with Charles Macak and Tafit Baker) in 1948. They were awarded U.S. copyright in 1950.
After the group broke up in the mid 1960s, LaPrise worked for the Post Office in Ketchum, Idaho.
The authorship of the Hokey Pokey is disputed, with European songwriter Jimmy Kennedy claiming to have written the original (entitled Cokey-Cokey) during WWII. Robert Degan sued LaPrise for copyright infringement of his 1946 The Hokey-Pokey Dance. They settled out of court.
LaPrise died, aged 82, in Gooding, Idaho.
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Laprise, Larry |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | |
| Date of birth | 2 January 1912 |
| Place of birth | Detroit, Michigan |
| Date of death | 3 April 1996 |
| Place of death | Gooding, Idaho |
Famous quotes containing the word larry:
“Where you gonna go? Where you gonna run? Where you gonna hide? Nowhere. ‘Cause there’s no one like you left.”
—Nicholas St. John, U.S. screenwriter, Larry Cohen (b. 1936)