Variety (July 1952)

OKClIBSTBAj(.»nr$l€ FREDDIE SLACK CUUktHTLY at tlia CRESCENDO HOLLYWOOD Capitol Records farsonal JIUNI TEACHER 333 S. R«v«rty Dr. iEVCRLY HILLS Fr«ddU Slack pravtiiy kl) hir Im carroHl- •N^agamMh Wirh Slack It Ilia Maa Marta wllk whom ha mad# tha arlqlnal .saeka ^'Caw-Cow Roo^Ia" ditc. GoHxyudfuatumi GdfUtpli LIGHT AND HIS LIGHTENING FINGERS Best Selling Album: "JUKE-BOX FAVORITES” Best Selling Record: “PERFIDIA” NEW CAPITOL album To Be Released Soon DIrtction: MCA ■ Now ‘Kins’ CbiiClBuad from pare 1 gratifying as in the case of Herb Marks who observes, ‘‘We start to work on a new tnne and then along come Les Paul and Mary Ford with their version of ‘In the Good Old Summertime’ and we have an in- voluntary and totally unexpected hit out in left field.” ’ Kewrite t|xe Biz From the dlskery viewpoint, most of the a.&r. men are frank in advocating a “rewrite of the music business as it' used to be.’ Sayi one executive, “Let u;s face it—the highpowered professional man just can’t be so highpowered in this day and age. What live talent is there around for him to romance? The* young kids who hang around with the disk jockeys do more good for current plug songs than landing that big Crosby or Dinah or Perry or Tony plug/’ A vet music man, Abe Olman, g.m. of Robbins; Feist, and Miller, agrees by pointing to the 'fact he has a new crop of young songplyg- gers whd are most sociable contact men who know how to stay up late with the late-hour dee jays; know how to talk their language and know how to roll with the current moods and trends in music, be it that current yen for “high-note” or “big voice”’ stylist, or the jive- hound, the melodic school or. the dee jay who yens to “discover” things. Fact is that where the music publishers used to make special ar- rangements, or even pay for atmos- pheric scenery for choice plugs in the old vaudeville days, in the new disk jockey days the publishers have a corps of special-material writers' fashioning special patter,^ intros, openings, rehearsed ad libs and the like for the dee jays. The disk jock is “romanced” like the acts used to be. There are 400 key plugs who, if they lay on this or that platter, can help pro- ject it into the public conscious- ness. Where a professional man used'to romance Nora Bayes, ta-' day he romances Joe Needle-Im- presario. While one school of the publish- ing and writing fraternity scoffs, “The trouble is that these platter- chatterers don’t know the music business,” the more progressive of the veterans will concede, “Let’s face it; with all the young singers coming Up they naturally feel more comfortable with our.younger staf- fers contacting them. They ‘Mis- ter’ me apd make me feel like an a.k., and when I tell ’em to call me by my first name they’re embar- rassed. But our kids know how to handle these kids; they know their line of thinking in song styling; and, above all, we may just 'as well confess that our younger pluggers also have- the pep and vinegar to stay up at all hours with them which we no longer have or should do, if we’re to run a daytime busi- ness also. None of us has forgot- ten how one great music man (the late) Lou Diamond (head of Para- mount and Famous Music) tried and couldn’t; at 47 his ticker got him!” ■ New Plug Techniques In effect, most of the major pub- lishing houses have, reorganized their songplugging techniques. There are still quite a few of the not-so-come-lately plugs around fhat warrant. the full treatment— Bing, Jo Stafford, Como, Doris Day, Tony Majrtitt; the Lombardos, Di- nah Shore, Evelsnci Knight, Patti. Page, Waughn Monroe, Margaret Whiting, Nat Cole, Billy Eckstine, et al.'-^and of course there are the dee jays. "The singers or maestros start to think that now they know more than the a. & r, man; they decide to pick their own songs; perlu^ps this is where the inferior “angle” tunes crop up and seep through; and the a. & r. is the victim of in- decision. He knows that if he in- sists and, again, doesn’t score, the artist will wall “another lemon,” so he sits back and the dog starts to wag the tail sometimes; i.e., the artist is telling the production brains (recording chief) at the diskery what to shoot and what not to risk. But the vicious cycle comes back to the fact that, more than ever, an inanimate object — a Vinylite platter running under three mins., regardless of the 33, 45 or 78 rpm speed—is the new “king” of Tin Pan Alley. The pop music busi- ness seems to revolve almost en- tirely around their revolving bis- cuit. ▼oiittaijay,. July. 1952 EXCLUSIVE recorders America'* Most ImUatecI Trumpeter CLYDE HeCOY and his SUGAR BLUES orchestra An instantaneous Hit Seller !' "SUGAR BLUES" ALBUM SUGAR BLUES BASIN STREET BLUES BLUES IN THE NIGHT LIMEHOUSE BLUES THE MEMPHIS BLUES ST. LOUIS BLUES WABASH BLUES FAREWELL BLUES Curretif Releases TEAR IT DOWN WHERE’S MY SWEETIE HIDING? v. 213S I LOVE TO HEAR A CHOO CHOO TRAIN TO BE LOVED BY YOU 2045 ALWAYS LATE CWITH YOUR KISSES! HELL’S BELLS 1985 SUGAR BLUES BOOGIE I JUST LOVE AFFECTION 1937 / Direction: MCA I'M MOVING ON MR, FLY-BY-NIGHT I WAS JUST WALKIN' OUT THE DOOR GOD'S LITTLE CANDLES THE BOOM SONG WONDERING