Johnny Neill was playing piano with a dance band in the depths of the Great Depression when a man approached him at an Omaha nightclub and offered him a job.  The man was Lawrence Welk, and he asked Mr. Neill to write some musical arrangements for his orchestra.  It was a big break in a career that saw Mr. Neill headline at some of Denver's toniest night spots in the '40s and '50s.

When Mr. Neill completed the works for Welk, he was offered $5,000, but he told the band leader he'd be money ahead if he hired him as an arranger. Welk did. On tour three months later in 1937, Welk asked him to play piano with the band.  He worked as musical director and musician for Welk for three years during which time Welk asked him after an afternoon rehearsal in Fairmont, Neb., to write a theme song for the band.

Mr. Neill went to a back booth in a cafe and wrote Bubbles in the Wine, which became Welk's "champagne" theme song.  Mr. Neill found his true fame, however, after World War II playing in the Denver area, especially at the famed Top of the Park in the Park Lane Hotel at 450 S. Marion St.

The Johnny Neill Orchestra also performed on The Coors Show on KOA radio, at the Brown Palace, Broadmoor, Stanley Hotel, Rainbow and Trocadero ballrooms, Denver Country Club, Tivoli Gardens, Sky Chef at Stapleton Airport and the Lagoon Nightclub.  It was a long way from his beginnings on June 14, 1914, when John Kenneth Neill was born in Mound City, Mo., the third of four boys.

His son, Johnny Neill Jr., a Denver musician who is playing fiddle in the Denver Performing Arts Complex production of Almost Heaven, said his father was a musical prodigy with a tremendous sense of humor.  "His older brother Forrest was a coronet player who later went on to play with the Guy Lombardo Orchestra," Neill said. "By the time Dad was 4, he would play America on the horn but never had a lesson."

When Mr. Neill was 7, his music teacher made a violin from a cigar box for him.  The family moved to Scotts Bluff, Neb., where Mr. Neill got a real instrument and by eighth grade was playing first violin section in the high school orchestra.  He married Lois Price in Scotts Bluff, Neb. She preceded him in death.  He served as a sergeant with the 12th Armored Division during World War II and was awarded a Bronze Star for retrieving stolen film supplies behind enemy lines.  He married Lois Mills, and the couple gave organ concerts in Florida, Denver and Wyoming, as well as for the local bank and retirement home in Denton, Texas.

He died Jan. 8, 2004 in Denton, Texas, at 89.  Mr. Neill is survived by his son, John Neill Jr., of Denver; a daughter, Judith Louise Crawford, of Indianapolis; four grandchildren; and one brother.