Variety (Sep 1946)

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Wednesday, Septombci' 18, 1946 USriett Olt€llfiSTIIA^-.^l VSIC 39 SPA TERMS READY FOR PUBS Sinatra in Break With Barton Co., To Devote Efforts to New Firm Frarilt Sinatra's connection with Ben Barton and Hank Sanicola in the Barton Music Co. has been bro- ken off and the singer will hence- forth put all his efforts behind the jiew Sinatra Songs publishing firm he" is starting. Sinatra, Barton and Sanicola hnvc been arguing for sev- eral wcelcs over the placement of copyrights in the two firms and once previously Sinatra bad de- cided to withdraw from the Barton setup but recanted. Late last weelt he finally quit. Argument between Sinatra and Barton' and Sanicola, who is a part- ner in the' Barton firm, developed over Sinatra's decision to place all copyrights stemming from-his Metro filiiiis into the new Sinatra Songs firm. This was responsible for the ■ first di-sagreement. Later, in lieu of thfe first idea he had about the sec- ond firm, he asked Barton and Sani-- cola to give him 51%, or the control- ling interest in Bartoq. This they agreed to do if Sinatra would sign a contract with them under which they would run the firm over a pe- riod of years. Sinatra disagreed and resumed plans to set up Sinatra songs. Sinatra's pact with Metro gives him every other .score, alternating with Bobbins Mu.sic. His new firm will operate with offices in New York, Chicago and Hollywood. Orig- inally, the new firm was to haye been managed by Barton and its songs exploited by his staff, but now a new personnel is to be hired. Sinatra will not take any coin for his interest in Barton. He is e-xtracting certain copyrights from the catalog and transferring them to Sinatra Songs. What these copy- rights are is undisclosed. Among them probably will be his theme, "Put 'your Dreams Away" and "Nancy," written for the singer's young daughter, Sinatra has also advised Colum- bia Records that Barton tunes re- corded by him, but as yet unreleased, are not to be released. Legal Picket-Crossing Ever since New York I/Jcal 802, American rfederation of Musicians, called name bands out on .strike against N. Y, hotels, most of, the leaders in- . volved have, of necessity, been crossing,, the ilnioh's pi,cket; lines. They've been living at the hotels involved. The housing shortage is so acute that union action is thus precluded. ■ Local 802, at the time the strike was called, asked leaders to move, from the hotels they were living at in order to avoid contact with the pickets. ■ None could find new quarters, how- ■ever. , • Pubs Brushoff Capitol Ctttrate Disk Fee Bid Capitol Records is running into the same sort of negative reaction from major New York publishers that RCA-'Victor got last week in seeking a Vic royalty rate concessiwi on its new 60c disks. Capitol fol- lowed the RCA move in increasing the retail price of its pop disks from .lOc to 60c and it, too, seeks to avoid the payment of 2c per side royalty, asking the pubs for a l%c rate. Mer- cury Records is also boosting to 60c, but so far has not asked for pub royalty concessions. AT NI lyiCHEOi Representatives of the Songwriters Protective Assn. will formally hand music publisher reps tomorrow (Thursday) in New York the terms they seek in a new contract to be- come effective, Jan, 1. This agree- ment has been worked on by a com- mittee of SPA members for eight | months and was finally revised into/ its final form following a second trip, to meet with Coast SPA men by ! Fred Ahlert and , John , Schulma,n, ,j SPA attorney. They returned to N. Y. this week. Proposed , contract will be given to Walter Douglas, chairman of the Music Publishers Protective Assn., by Schulman and Milton Drake, one of Vne committee members, at a formal luncheon. At the same time, Ahlert will hand a duplicate copy of the terms to Herman, Starr, head of the Warner Btos. music combine. Since the WB firms are not members of the MPPA. they must be dealt •with separately. Starr is also be- ing looked on as representative of those publishers also not MPPA members. Neither Douglas nor Starr, incidentally, is aware that the pro- posed contract will be bonded them at the luncheon. For some time, music publishers have been awaiting an idea of the demands the writers will make. There has been considerable con- jecture and discussion on the sub- ject, but, on the whole, the SPA committee has been very tightlipped on what they have decided to ask j I Ralph Peer Takes Over ARA Disks, Attorney Asks Creditors Go Along More Like a Breakdown Jack Kapp, Decca chief, came back from a vacation in Bermu- da with his family last week Saying he shoulda stood in bed. Starting out on a five-day jaunt, Kapp ran into a continuous ,se- ,'ries of mishaps : starting With a .seven hours' delay at the New York airport. Coming back, only ' accommodations were found in a converted air transport which got lost for a time after some rough going and finally landed . at Baltimore. i, ; The Kapps had to , complete the trip to New York by train. "Vacation was so exhausting,-the Kapp family went to a nearby country resort for a rest. - .. , „ , .. . for. and most publisher talk on the ^^?}^]. '!i5^"!,^*:.„l''.: I sub,lect has been based on guesses. Royalty Demand Zenith Oidlets To iXstribM-GDisb Metro Records will be distributed in New York, Newark and Chicago by Zenith radio outlets and by dis- tributors who handle the Zenith line in all other sections of the country although there is no deal with Zen- ith involving the lattcrv It happens that the distribs tied up with M-G-M in this way also are tied up with Zenith, New company la.st week made an- other move on rounding up person- nel. It signed Jesse Kaye, who has been heading Loew's vaude booking department, tor the past few years, te head the Hollywood office 61 the company. Ih addition to his normal work, in such a position, Kaye will contact Metro artists on the lot on disking, look for other talent not connected with the film company and otherwise supervi.se operation of the ^Hollywood branch. He leaves for the Coast within a few ; weeks. His spot at Loew's is being taken by Sid Piermont, Who preceded Kaye in that position. (Further details in Vaudeville section). cording to publishers who have stood steadfastly against the Victor bid for a break on the 2c per side price due them on all disks retailing above 50c. Tliey feel the recording indus- try has gotten away long enough with bargain royalty prices since the picas of the then infant Decca company inaugurated the practice about 10 years ago, Capitol used the same approach of the publishers as did RCA, Last week, after most major publishers had been visited per.sonally by H. C, Darnell, RCA attorney, in -search of tlie lower rates, RCA followed it up with letters to all pubs stating that in the event they were not ad- vised differently, it would be as-^ sumed that the l%c royalty was satisfactory. Capitol's letters, from its Coast headquarters, concluded in the same vein. Letters from both RCA and Capi- tol have been turned over to Harry Fox, general manager of the Music Publishers Protective Assn. and agent and trustee for pubs in such matters. He's on the Coast at the moment and no doubt will advise Cap executives of the publishers' .stand. B. G. LEHING HAIR GROW LONG AGAIN Benny Goodman wilt go longhair^ again Nov. 18^19 When he appears as soloist with the New York City Symphony under Leonard Bernstein at the N. Y. City Center in the world preem of Alex North's "Revue for Clarinet and Orchestra." North Cdmposed the work last year while still attached to Army Special Serv« ices in N. Y. Entire program those two days '^ill consist of music written by young veterans, CAP NAMES HUSTLED FOR EASTERN WAXINGS Every Capitol Record name cur- rently in the east will take a shot at Capitol disking mikes this week, Paul Weston, Cap's recording direc- tor, flew into N.Y. over the weekend for a full week of cutting after which he must quickly jump back to Hollywood to pick up the baton on Andy Ru-ssell's cut-in from the Coast on the Lucky Strike "Hit Parade." Weston will record .lo Stafford. Margaret Whiting, Peggy Lee, King. Cole Trio, Rusisell and Alvino Rey's orchestra all this week, at WMCA and WOR studios in N.Y. He'll work afternoons and nights some days to get them all on wax. The arti.st.s, cbmpri.sing mo.st of the cream of Capitol's crop, are all working in the east at the moment. JoU^s&^ Cr^ For Band Agcies. Spnie of the band agencies havfe been ruhning- into a new twist in their; relStibhs With young and les- ser-known orchestral leaders. byrin^ recent:'.we^kis/ as the; sum- mer Season waneiS : and vSeasonal .one-nighters and locations began folding until spring, a Sizable nujifi- bor of these outfits have seen po- tential working opportunities fade and a tough future staring at them. To clear their rosters of bandleaders for whom they cannot easily find workr one iOr two of . the agencies haVe - beeti ofJering : teleases trbni: contracts to these; combos, but the leaders won't take them. : ; This stance has stopped some of the agency men cold. They don't know what to do when a leader for whom they can see very little fu- ture won't take his freedom and try to keep going with another agency. They listen to the maestros tell ,,4 ■ , T« tu 4 , them to "do the best they can" and l".c royalty per side. If the writers themselves to be talked into One term the writers are expected to propcse is a full 50% of the statu- tory 2c royalty on recordings. This has been pretty much obviated by the increase in retail prices by RCA- 'Victor and Capitol records from 50c to 60g and the subsequent necessity of paying 2c per side for their music. Columbia Records, however, still pegs its retail prices at 50c and pays Hollywood, Sept. 17, ■ Ralph Peer will be the new prex,y and principal creditor of ARA records local platter firm, it was dis- closed , yesterday (Monday) at , a . creditors meeting held by 'Morton Garbus, attorney and acting prei: of ARA. In an attempt to influence , creditors into permitting continued operation and eliminate the thrpnt', of bankruptcy, \yire was read from , mu.sic publishi;r, now in Mexico, reportedly lining "up Latin talent for ARA, acquiring a pressing plant there'and arranging for release, of , ARA disks, ■ ■ John Beck, of Universal-Internal tional. and Charles Washburn were,; described as associated with Peer in deal, though Becli pointedly made it clear, that U-l wa,s not itself involved in ^matter, Garbus, in revealing that ARA had $600,000 in assets, as com- pared to a disputed $900,000 in lia- bilities, which creditors said wa.s too- low an estimate, asked that creditors; go along with the new management , group in an effort to put ARA back in profitable motion. , As a total; Peer group is reported- ly owed $,')00,000 acquired when fhcy ^ bought up personal notes held by Mark Leff, former ARA head. Gov- ernment was listed as being owed .$200,000 in taxes, and remainder ot debt is split between music publish- ing firms and talent. Phil Harris: was logged as largest artist creditor. Others included Hoagy Carmichael, Ginny Simms, Judy Canova, Chu Chu Martinez, et al. . Garbus is said to have stated that unless others went along with new mana,gement, foreclosures would re- sult in said management credit of $500,000 being dissolved first. Crctli- tors are to appoint a committee to study the plan and return with a verdict. Minneapolis Symphony orchestra start.s Oct, 1 to record exclusively for RCA Victor. It's organization's first Victor contract in .several years, recent platters having been made for Columbia. - ■(■■, ,:I . ■ ■< , ■,■ demand their legal half of the 2c rate, a,s expected, publishers will have no alternative but" to demand 2c from Columbia or be satisfied with V-iC per side of that company's royalties as their own profit. Disk royalty is probably the only subject the pubs are certain the writers will dwell on in the new contract However, there have been reports of other items to which they're averse. One of the.se is a sliding scale ot payoff on sheet-sale royalties. They've heard the writers will ask so much per eopy for sales in the lower brackets, increasing as sales go higher. It's emphasized that ,the terms handed Douglas and Starr tomorrow are only proposals; It's very prob- able that there will be considerable argument, before: final terms are agreed upon,. There's plenty of time, for discussion. Current agreement doesn't expire until Dec, 31. retaining their contractual hold on the combos. As agency men have been predict- ing all summer, the next four to six months is going to witness a mad scramble for survival among the iesser^known combos. Virtually all agencies have plenty of these groups on their hands, with no dates in sight. And the situation isn't en- tirely restricted to the lesser outfits. Some names are included. Pied Pipers, Capitol Diskers, OK EX Pact With Rival Standard Hollywood, Sept 17. Brcakin,^ away from parlay setup, whereby Capitol record artists also i eitt for Capitol transcription firm. Pied Pipers signed deal over week- end with Standard Radio for tran- .scriptions. This is first in.<^*ancc of signini! away by company's artists and may be indication, of Standard's SAVINO JOINS R0B6INS IN NEW PUBLISHING CO. Domenico Savino, still a stock- holder in: Robbins Music although Metro bought out Jack Robbins, has moved over to J. J. Robbins & Son.s, to work with the veteran music man in editing and publishing new works. Robbins & Sons will publish Savino's ''Cuban Concerto" and a ■number of folios., Firm. was. set up by Robbins following his exit from the Metro combine. One is the "Carnival Song Book," tied up with Nicky Blair's Carnival, N. Y. nitery, to include such w,k, non-copyrights as "Me,rry Widow," "Ro.se of Tralee," "Loch Lomond,"', "Last Rose of Summer," "Aloha," "The Bowery," "Strolling Through the Carry Me Back to Ole Vir- Cosmo Disb On AFM'Unfair'List Co.smopolitan Records has been placed on the "unfair list" by New York Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians and for the past week or so has not been able to do any recording. Action by 802 followed a complaint by mac.=tro Larry Clinton, who had been unable .to collect from Cosmo some $6,000 due, him for arranging and con- ducting for the label. Earlier this week, Clinton formally advised • Cosmo that his one-year with options contract with the com- pany was voidj due to its inability to live up to its financial terms. ginny," "Daisy Bell," "Home on the Range," "JoUy Good Night," "Hinky Dinky Parleyvoo," 'Little Annie Rooney" and "Volga Boat gong." Ted Fetter will writC; special new lyrics,::- ,'' Robbins points out that some of opening gun in prospective raids on j the best, Victor Herbert and Soiina Capitol in return for latter's entry | music will soon become copyright- free", as their 56 years of copyright protection, at least in the U. S., w^ill shortly expir^i and he vifill i.ssue "Premiere Editidiis" of these works, in jolit>'form'.'',:^'i:,'■'■'■■•■■;,'.::'' » ripil into E. T, field. Capitol would make no comment on Pied Piper's deal except to say tha^ grogp'f terjrjs could nqt be. met. DEUTSCH VICE ROBBINS INTO ARTISTS BUREAU Howard (Buddy) Robbins has stopped out of the American Aiti,sts Bureau, nee Robbins Artists Bureau, with plans of going into the ad agency field,: Milton Deutsch, band: manager for Miguelito Valdez, Benny Carter, et al,, is the new op- erating head of the AAB, Coinci- dent with young Robbins' resigna- tion is his intention to wed Bemice Stark, of Baltimore, AAB was originally founded by music publisher: Jack Robbins as an adjunct to Metro, before he and the film company parted company. It was operated the past year, or so by Howard Richmond and young Rob- bins, Richmond was forced out ,six weeks ago by poor health. I. KOHL IN VET HOSPITAL John P. Kohl, son of Charles Kohl (& Castle) who operated the Majes- tic- theatre, Chicago, and was con- nected with the WesteCn Vaudeville Managers Assn,, will remain until .spring at the Veterans Hospital, Fori (.Austin,,IVUch. . .,