Variety (December 1952)

Wednesday.* .December.. 3,-1952 Melchior's Chautauqua Trek With Troupe To Aid Young Musicians Las Vegas, Dec. 2. A nitery will serve as a testing ground for Chautauqua entertain- ment for the first time next month when Lauritz Melchior breaks in his new “Musical Dinner” in which he will star with eight young mu- sicians. Layout, which spans 105 minutes, will open at the Sahara Jan. 2 for a one-week run. During its tenure, however, there’ll be no service at showtime. » Melchior, who says the 100-city trek is designed to aid-the young American artist, has arranged with the National Federation of Music Clubs to have two musicians ap- pear during intermission in each city. They’ll compete for a grand prize of $750, a trip to Hollywood and a screen test. Troupe will play school audi- toria principally. Nut will be about $125,000 for the trek with troupe getting a minimum of $250 per week. Personnel consists of winners of various musical awards and in- cludes George Roth and Ted Sad- lovski, piano duo; and singers Shirley Emmons, Angeline Collins, Val Valente, Alan Werner, Michael Roberts and Edward Williams. Pro- gram will be in six parts, starting with a selection of romance songs, followed by the’ piano team and selections from grand opera. Af- ter the local, talent fills in the in- termission period, the Melchior troupe resumes with more operatic selections and finally pop stuff. Singers will be used both as solo- ists and as members of a choral group. Monroe Skedded For Qne-Niter Tour in '53 Albany, Dec. 2. Vaughn Monroe played to 1,800 customers at $1.80 tab in the State Armory here Saturday (29). It was his first appearance here since he topped the bill at Fabian’s Palace three years ago. Monroe will launch a one-night- er tour in the midwest after New Year’s. Monroe is scheduled to re- port at Republic Studios in March for a musical. His previous screen stints for that company have been Westerns. Loesser Uses Counter In Lobby to Sell ‘Hans’ Score Frank Music, Frank Loesser’s publishing company, hao set up a counter in the lobby of the Crite- rion Theatre on Broadway, where “Hans Christian Andersen” is showing, to hawk copies of the Loesser score for the pic. Since the pic opened last week, the counter has sold over 6,000 copies on the various Loesser tunes. Publishing firm’s general man- ager, Herb Reis, is currently eye- ing the possibility of using the same setup in other theatres when the pic goes into general release Dec. 26. Reis is considering mak- ing a deal with the operators of thj candy counters to handle the sheet music off the pic. Ray Sinatra's Band Las Vegas, Dec. 2. Ray Sinatra, longtime radio mu- sical director, will debut with his own band Dec. 15 at the new Sands Hotel. He’ll backstop the fioorshow, which headlines Danny Thomas, In addition to providing the dance beat. Sinatra recently was musical di- rector for the Mario Lanza show. Prior to that, he accompanied Evelyn Knight on tour. Gene Block to Army Gene Block, son of disk jockey Martin Block and programmer of the “Make Believe Ballroom” plat- ter show on WNEW, N. Y., began his hitch in the U. S. Army last week. The programming chpre has been taken over fry Harvey Geller, for- merly of London Records publicity staff. Grady to Lanin Mgt. James Grady, formerly with Mae Johnson Agency, has joined How- ard Lanin Management. He’s booking the British Colonial Nassau, for. that office, plus other accounts. 41 Scoreboard * OF TOP TALENT AND TUNES Compiled from Statistical Reports of Distribution Encompassing the Three Major Outlets Coin Machines Retail Disks Retail Sheet Music as Published in the Current Issue for " WEEK ENDING NOVEMBER 29 — stren B th of the Artists and Tunes listed hereunder Is f . ? un< *?l a statistical system comprising each of the three major sales outlets enu - ar * correlated with data from wider sources , which are exclusive p ° sitions resulting from these findings denote the OVERALL IMPACT de - pp i wt * scored: two MV* the case of talent (disks, coin machines ), ana three ways in the case of tunes (disks, coin machines, sheet music). POSITIONS This Last week. week. TALENT 1 2 2 3 ARTIST AND LABEL JONI JAMES (MGM) MILLS BROS. (Decca) 1 JO STAFFORD (Columbia) 4 'PATTI PAGE (Mercury) 6 EDDIE FISHER (Victor) 7 8 9 10 5 7 10 8 HILLTOPPERS (Dot) PEARL BAILEY (Coral) MARIO LANZA (Victor) VERA LYNN (London) JOHNNY STANDLEY (Capitol) TUNE Why Don’t You Believe Me Glow Worm [You Belong to Me j Jambalaya [Keep it a Secret I Went to Your Wedding ■ You Belong to Me Conquest (Wish You Were Here jLady of Spain (Outside of Heaven Trying , Takes Two to Tango Because You’re Mine . Yours It’s in the Book POSITIONS This Last ' week. week. TUNES 1 2 3 4 8 0 7 8 9 10 2 ;i 3 1 8 5 7 6 • ♦ 10 . TUNE GLOW WORM WHY DON’T YOU BELIEVE YOU BELONG TO ME i Went to your wedding BECAUSE YOU’RE- MINE TRYING TAKES TWO TO TANGO JAMBALAYA LADY OF SPAIN IT’S IN THE BOOK ME. Road to Bigger ASCAP Payoff Is More Tunes, Not Squawks: A Roberts Lyricist Allan Roberts holds no brief for cleffers who are con- tinually squawking for revision of the current American Society of Composers, Authors ’& Publishers writer payoff plan. According to Roberts, these writers are trying to make a living from ASCAP in- stead of from songwriting. “If the writers would write more,” Roberts added, “they’d squawk less.” The dissident cleffers who are demanding a bigger slice of the ASCAP melon want their past ef- forts to bring in heftier coin re- turn instead of trying to. turn out new tunes to cash jin on current mechanical and performance roy- alties. “ASCAP isn’t a charity or- ganization,” Roberts stated, “and no matter what system the society devised, these writers would still claim it wasn’t equitable.” Roberts figured that if these cleffers got their current suggested revisions, the majority \vould end up with about $10 more on their quarterly payoff. Roberts revealed that since join- ing ASCAP in 1937 his total pay- off just about reached the $25,Q0Q mark. “That’s not much in 15 years,” he said, “but I’ve been able to make money from writing by supplementing the ASCAP income with royalties on the stream of new songs I’ve continually got working for me.’ 1 There are many other ASCAP writers who get as little as $15 a quarter but who make a comfortable livelihood from cleffing by steadily turning out new material. Roberts believes that the young writers aren’t falling for the quick payoff lure of Broadcast Music, Inc., and are showing a definite preference for an ASCAP affilia- tion. In the long run, Roberts add- ed, the cieffer winds up with big- ger returns from ASCAP while the BMI royalty returns decrease. There’s also evidence, he revealed, that a growing number of BMI , cleffers are angling to transfer ■ the^p catalogs to ASCAP. For the past couple of years - Roberts had been turning out a flock of t':nes in collaboration with Robert Alien. He and Allen split recently, however, and Roberts now is collafrfring with several compos- ers. PUBLISHER . .E. B. Marks .,.. . Brandon .. Ridgeway ....St. Louis Feist Randy Smith Harman .... AcufY-R $ox ' .,. .Magnolia HETAIL SHEET BEST SELIEBS ■PfiRiEfr Survey of retail sheet music sales based on reports obtained from leading stores in 12 cities and showing comparative sales rating for this and last week , National Rating This Last Week Ending Nov. 29 Title and Publisher w Q 3 A I N £ St XI o in o to Q £ <u & 3 a 12 0 3 1 4) 5 0 U (A P 3 £ A 1 $ 4-t a 1 Q S x: o rf 2 Pi 4) nt 3 0 'H to p 3 w 1 a 4» ■"9 6 G s Cfl 9 o O in P 3 4-> s •3 w A to MM & nt 4) a * p. 9 w o w B 3’ w 3 © I A 9 3 9* u A I I P3 % 9 •tM a> A Ik $ 2 A 10 «» p 0 in u at 4) Pk £ 1 9 3 a T O T A L P 0 1 N T Col Packaging LP ’Goodman Anthology’ Extending its Jong-play packag- ing program into the pop field, Co- lumbia Records is releasing six Benny Goodman long-play disks in a set which will retail for about $34. Album will include both of Goodman’s “concert” disk sets as well as one collection of his old orch sides and another bf his small combo works. Set will be called the “Benny Goodman Anthology/’ Columbia previously used the package idea for the two Pablo Casals Festival series, comprising over 10 long-play platters apiece. Despite the approximately $50 price tag, both sets sold strongly. Wayne Disbands Orch For Songwriting Chores Bernie Wayne, orch leader who recorded under the King Records banner, has disbanded his orch to concentrate on songwriting. Wayne, who penned the current wax instrumentals, “Verardero” and “Vanessa,” debuts in the musi- comedy field with the score for upcoming tab show at the Ver- sailles, N. Y., which is set to preem Dec. 10. BSO Gotham Benefit For the first time in 13 years, the Boston Symphony Orchestra will give a Pension Fund concert in New York, at Carnegie Hall, Sunday (7). Pierre Monteux will conduct and Met soprano Margaret Har- shaw will be soloist. Riccardo to Do Sfnglo Danny Riccardo, vocalist with the Elliot Lawrence "orch for the past two years, Is ankling the band to go out as a soloist. He’ll be re- placed by Jack Hunter. Hunter was the original vocalist with the Lawrence crew.