Radio and television mirror (July-Dec 1951)

VO0 r. PERIODIC PAIN Midol acts three ways to bring relief from menstrual suffering. It relieves cramps, eases headache and it chases the "blues". Dora now takes Midol at the«^ first sign of menstrual distress. FREE 24-page book, "What Women Want to Know", explains menstruation. (Plain wrapper). Write Dep't. B-ll, Box 280, New York 18, N. Y. i. THE SINGING COMMERCIAL 16 By ADELAIDE VAN WEY A new innovation? Not at all — in fact, radio wasn't even a dream when the first huckster's chant was heard Editor's Note: Adelaide Van Wey, young Southern contralto from Rossman, North Carolina, is known throughout America for her extensive research in folk music and brilliant performance of these songs. Although classically trained, her love for folk music has been predominant. She has made trips into all parts of the United States to find and notate the music she heard, the music which has been handed down from generation to generation. She was made an honorary citizen of New Orleans for her outstanding records of Creole folk songs, an album of which is in the Library of Congress. Most of us think of the singing commercial as a spontaneous outgrowth of the hectic thirties and frantic forties — the advertising -conscious decades when many an ad jingle was as well-known as the No. 1 song on the Hit Parade. But actually the singing commercial was a familiar part of every man's life several centuries ago when pedlers first devised short melodies to chant and draw attention to their wares. The street vendors' cries have lasted those hundreds of years and today their utility value in certain sections of Paris, Rome, Marseilles, Charleston, Savannah, New York and New Orleans is still recognized and employed. The term I like best in referring to street cries is "unconscious music." The huckster doesn't realize he is singing. His cry is designed to call attention to his wares. Words are important, too. To lessen the tiresome hawking, a variety of words is used and a little tune unconsciously becomes easier to repeat than a sharp yell or loud call. These pedlers use every imaginable means to bring their produce to town — trucks, mules, wagons, baskets and pushcarts. Many housewives buy their food in these cities from the house to house sellers, because their prices are always a bit below the prices in shops and markets. There are watermelons to be sold — peaches, blackberries, sweet oranges, strawberries, vegetables and flowers. Nor are these all the cries. There's the chimney sweep, once a familiar sight and sound (and still is in Paris, New Orleans and Savannah)'; the broom seller, who makes the New Orleans sagebrush brushes himself; the knife sharpener, the umbrella mender, the cantaloupe seller — they are Adelaide Van Wey all still there in New Orleans and continental cities. Many street cries I have heard and learned "first hand." Others I've been told about or taught by someone who heard the cry. Coming from the South I have been familiar with these cries for years and have incorporated them in my Creole Folk Song Albums. It's interesting to note these selling tunes differ with locale. The Charleston shrimp seller sings "Shrimpu," the New Orleans vender uses the same word, but the tune is different. Those who have written down street cries seldom are able to catch the actual sounds. There are no notes depicting pitches not found on the black keys, not on the white, but "in the cracks." One has to depend on the ear to catch the trick intonations of the real vender. Years of calling wares, in heat and wind, go into perfecting the pedler's street cry which is indeed, his trade mark. In the age of the super-market, the original street cries are a fast disappearing part of the American scene, but they have been transplanted into the jazzy tempo of modern advertising. Such cries as: Ma crabs are nice and brown I sell dem all aroun' When you're hongry and blue Wait for de crab man to pass through Crab-ee, Debbil Crab-ee Blackberries, want some blackberries — not a green one in the pail. preceded by many years the jingle: "How mild, how mild, how mild can a cigarette be!"