Larry LaPrise

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources:  –  ·  ·  · scholar · JSTOR (January 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Larry LaPrise ( Roland Lawrence LaPrise) (November 11, 1912^[1] - April 4, 1996^[2]) at one point held the U.S. copyright for the song "Do The Hokey Pokey".

LaPrise was born in Detroit, Michigan. He wrote "Do The Hokey Pokey" 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 (on the record they're known as the Sun Valley Trio) (with and ) in 1948. They were awarded U.S. copyright in 1950. The authorship of the Hokey Pokey is disputed, with Irishn songwriter Jimmy Kennedy published the original "Cokey-Cokey" in 1942. sued LaPrise for copyright infringement of his 1946 "The Hokey-Pokey Dance". They settled out of court.

After the group broke up in the mid-1960s, LaPrise worked for the Post Office in Ketchum, Idaho. LaPrise died, aged 83, in Gooding, Idaho.

References[]

This article on a songwriter is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by .

• v
• t