Variety (December 1954)

w^lnradav, December 22, 1954 MUSIC 45 See 3-in-Row For Cap Via Album On ‘Guys’ Soundtrack Hollywood, Dec. 21. For the third time in six months, Caoitol's contract roster appears to have guaranteed it the. 1 rack album on one of the film versions of a big Broadway musi- cal There haven’t been any formal negotiations, but the Coast label apparently will wind up with the soundtrack packaging of Samuel Golduvn's independent filmization of “Guvs and Dolls.” Decca had the original Broadway cast album. Capitol's inside track stems from the fact that Frank Sinatra, a Capi- tol artist, will star in “Guys and Dolls.’’ along with Marlon Brando, Vivian Blaine and Jean Simmons. 1 abel recently got the soundtrack for the cartoon feature version of “Finian’s Rainbow” because of the cast presence of Sinatra, and Ella I.ogan and snagged the film sound- track album on “Oklahoma” be- cause the pic stars Gordon MacRae, another Capitol artist. KOOL Disk Jockeys Deny Station Banned Tm a Rollin’ ’ Disk Phoenix. Editor. Variety: 1 feel I must clear up a situa- tion that I’m sure came about as the result of a misunderstanding. Here’s the complete story. Some time ago when “I’m a Roll- In" first came in I played it for Tom Chauncy, our managing direc- tor. He did not bar the record; on the contrary he thought it was so funny he wanted to get some extra copies for his friends. He did take the record home with him, not because he didn’t want it in the library, but because he wanted to play it fqr his guests. We ac- tually went out and purchased a 78 rpm version for the station so that Bob Donnelly, our morning deejay, could play it on his novelty show and morning program. 1 myself have not played the rec- ord on the air on either of my two shows, not because I was told to bar it. but because it does not fit in with the type of music I play. I rarely play novelties of my shows, preferring to concentrate on stand- ards and the prettier popular tunes. I’m one of these rare dee- jays who didn’t play "Doggie in the Window” or "The Mama Doll Song." On several occasions I was called and asked if I would play the record. I told the caller that 1 did not play the record on my shows. Perhaps Mr. Jonas was one of those who called and misconstrued my answer to mean that I couldn’t play it. If so, he is mistaken. In the two years and three months I have worked at this station I have never once been told what not to play or what to play on my shows. The management here has always hewed to a hands off policy when it comes to the musical content of our record shows. As this is a rare experience for me since I first en- tered radio some 10 years ago, I have been extremely happy with KOOL. If at any time they w r ere to tell me what to play I w’ould have. I feel I am a responsible person who knows music and I would never play anything in bad taste. I presume they have the same regard for my ability for they have never interfered. Frank Pollack. P£R&Ti Scoreboard OF TOP TALENT AND TUNES POSITIONS This Last Week Week 1 2 2 1 8 9 10 NOTE: The current comparative sales strength of the Artists and Tunes listed hereunder is arrived at under a statistical system comprising ec.ch of the three major sales outlets enu- merated abore. These findings are correlated with'data from wider sources, which are exclusive with Variety. The positions resulting from these findings denote the OVERALL IMPACT de- veloped from the ratio of points scored, two ways in the case of talent (coin machines, retail disks) and three ways in the case of tunes (coin machines, retail disks and retail sheet music). TALENT ARTIST AND LABEL TI NE JOAN WEBER (Columbia) Let Me Go, Lover CHORDETTES (Cadence) Mister Sandman { I Need You Now Count Your Blessings Fanny This Ole House ROSEMARY CLOONEY (Columbia) j Mambo Italiano Hey There AMES BROTHERS (Victor) Naughty Lady of Shady Lane De CASTRO SISTERS (Abbott) Teach Me Tonight 1 Papa Loves Mambo PERRY COMO (Victor) -{Home for the Holidays Things I Didn’t Do Shake, Rattle and Roll Dim, Dim the Lights iRock Around the Clock \ Mister Sandman FOUR ACES (Decca) /it’s a Woman’s World SARAH VAUGHAN (Mercury) Make Yourself Comfortable 5 6 8 6 BILL HALEY’S COMETS (Decca) 10 POSITIONS This Last Week Week 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 4 7 5 3 6 8 TUNES (♦ASCAP. tBMI) TUNB PUBLISHER ♦MISTER SANDMAN Morris fLET ME GO, LOVER Hill & Range ♦TEACH ME TONIGHT Hub-Leeds ♦NAUGHTY LADY OF SHADY LANE Paxton ♦COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS Berlin tTHIS OLE HOUSE Hamblen ♦I NEED YOU NOW Miller ♦PAPA LOVES MAMBO Shapiro-Bernstein ♦MAKE YOURSELF COMFORTABLE Rylan 4 +HEARTS OF STONE Regent Ditto Donnelly Editor, Variety: "hen the recording of “I’m a 7 lh " by Jackie Miles arrived a our station, I had the pleasure ( ! aui ‘itioning it for our managing d:i ector, Tom Chauncey. Chauncey ‘ts ' e, y amused by the recording and encouraged me to plug it. He • ^0 lrquested me to purchase sev- whi. h i -» h j S own ^0^1 use, 11 1 did. At no time did he niemon the banning of it. Bob Donnelly. New Scot Orch Maestro » T ; , . ^ Glasgow, Dec. 21. condnMn has been named Vaho,v t0 n °J the BBC Scottish KemIn £ h ,L succee <Hng the late m^L St ? phen * He h as been Orch, Lond.»! he Criterlon Li * ht BRUBECK SETS SCHOOL DATES AT $1,000 PER Chicago, Dec. 21. Dave Brubeck will make a swing of the colleges next ybar at an average $1,000 per night. School dates, for most of which Brubeck's quartet will perform a single two- hour jazz concert, have been booked nearly solid in January and February, save for a two-framer at the Blue Note in Chi. Concentration of Brubeck’s col- lege appearances will be in the | midwest. Sues Cugat for 21IG, Charging Pact Breach Los Angeles, Dec. 21. Franklvn D'Amore filed suit in L A. Superior Court against Xavier Cugat and three John Does, charg- ing breach of contract and asking $21,500 damages. Plaintiff declares he was re- sponsible for booking Cugat for a 12-week tour of Europe which did about $200,000. He wants 10% and another $1,500 to cover ex- penses. He also wants 7 % interest dating from Oct. 17 of this year. Mary McCoy Single Mary McCoy, formerly vocalist with the Sammy Kaye band, made her debut as a single at the low’n Casino, Buffalo, Monday <20L This is hometown week for Miss McCoy, who was once a school- teacher in Buffalo. 2d Gotham Area Disk Distrib Shift For the second time this month, the New York area’s disk distribu- j tion setup is getting a reshuffling. Last w eek Mercury Records launched plans for an owned and operated distrib setup replacing i Malverne. and now MGM is prep- pir.g a switch from Sanford to the newly-organized Ideal Record Dis- tributors. Both distrib operations are expected to tee off by the first of the year. 1 Ideal outfit is being set up by A1 Levine, who’s been Capitol’s N. Y. area distrib. He’s ankling ! Cap to take on the MGM account. Sanford had been handling the MGM platters for the past three years. 1 It’s understood that the Sanford personnel working on the MGM distribution will move over to Levine’s Ideal firm. Ideal will have offices in midtown Manhat- tan for closer contact with the diskery. DELUXE ALBUM MARKS ARN0LD-VICT0R ANNI Eddy Arnold’s 10th anniversary with RCA Victor will be marked this week with the release of a de luxe commemorative album titled “Eddy Arnold—An American In- stitution.” Set, which will be is- sued in LP and EP form, will con- sist of 10 country tunes from each of the past 10 years. None of them w as previously recorded by Arnold. In his association with Victor, Arnold has been consistently j among the company’s topselling artists. Fo* many years, his stand- ing initial order on all his releases was highest at Victor and, al- though a country singer, Arnold’s disks sales have also been an im- portant factor in the pop field as well. ‘Hit Parade’ Lineup (On Dec. 18 NBC-TV Show) 1. Mister Sandman . Morris 2. Teach Me Tonight . . Hub 3. Let Me Go, Lover . H & R 4. Count Blessings .. Berlin 5. Papa Loves Mambo S-B 6. Naughty Lady ... Paxton 7. 1 Need You Now .. Miller Special Plugger Set By ‘Stockings’ Producers In an unusual plugging maneu- i ver for a legituner, producers Cy | Feuer and Ernest H. Martin have i put Kappi Jordan on the payroll j to promote the disks from the Cole ; Porter score for “Silk Stockings.” Producer practice, heretofore, had been to rely upon the score's pub- lishers for all the disk plugging ac- tivity. Chappell Music, score’s publish- ers, already have set 30 separate waxings on the tunes and an origi- nal cast album is due from RCA Victor. Miss Jordan is a freelance disk promoter. Stuart Hamblen’s Prolific Parlay Of Religiosos Stuart Hamblen is winding up the year as one of the music biz’s hottest composers. The western- religioso tunesmith. who ran lor President in the 1952 election on the Prohibition ticket, already has a 1,000.000-plus platter seller in Rosemary Clooney’s “This Ole House" and is now riding strong with "Old Pappy Time” via Ar- thur Godfrey (Columbia) and June Valli (RCA Victor). He’s also got a strong hit contender in Decca’s coupling of “The Lord Is Counting On You” and "Open Up Your Heart” by the Cowboy Church Sun- day School. As well as Vaughn Monroe’s "Good Night Mrs. Jones” for Victor. Hamblen, who is an itinerant re- rivali.st preacher, made a big dent in the pop field four years ago with “It Is No Secret." Tune was pub- lished by Duchess Music, a Leeds subsid, and sold well over 500.000 sheet music copies. Since then Hamblen has launched his own publishing operation and his own songs are going in there. His acceptance is analogous to that of the late Hank Williams in both the hillbilly and pop markets. Like Williams, who cut his num- bers on the MGM label, Hamblen has been doing his songs for RCA Victor recently and before that, for Columbia Records. At the pres- ent time, a Hamblen tune gets au- tomatic coverage by other country artists and frequently by pop names as well. Papa Celestin, Jazzman From Original Basin St., Dies in N. Orleans at 70 New Orleans. Dec. 21. Oscar (Papa) Celestin. Negro jazzman who helped to carry the dixieland rhythm to its heights in the era of prohibition, speakeasies, old Basin street and naughty Story- ville, died last Wednesday <15) at his home here of cancer. He was 70 years old. Celestin died a few hours be- fore , the formal presentation of his sculptured head at ceremonies in his honor by civic leaders and loyal jazz fans. The work was by Rai Graner Murray. - The career of Celestin spanned the days when jazz was born in Storyville’s Basin street. It was the closing of Storyville and the razing-X)f the area’s cabarets and bordellos that sent Celestin into semi-oblivion. But he returned to the jazz spotlight along the French Quarter’s celebrated Bourbon street, which became the rallying ground for Basin Street's alumnus. First hint that Celestin was seri- ously ill came last September w hen his band played without him at the New Orleans Jazz Club's festival on behalf of the Crippled Chil- dren’s Hospital. Celestin held forth as the city’s greatest. The tone of his trumpet was still clear as a bell a few short weeks before he expired. Celestin came to New Orleans at the turn of the century, expert but unknown. Musicians like King (Continued on page 48) Rose & Jack Robbins’ 35th Rose and Jack Robbins celebrate their 35th wedding anniversary New Year’s eve with an intimate family group at their Mayflower Hotel (N. Y.) apartment. Both Howard (Buddy) and Mar- shall (Brother) Robbins are mar- ried, former residing in New York, and the latter on the Coast. He’s coming east with his bride for the event. Both, like the veteran mu- sic publisher and founder of The Big Three dynasty (until selling out to Metro and 20th Century- Fox), are independently in the music business. Millinder Rejoins King Bandleader Lucky' Millinder is rejoining the King Records’ art- ists roster. Millinder is current- ly reorganizing a unit for disk pur- poses. Millinder exited King last year after a long association.