Variety (March 1953)

Wednesday, March 4, 1953 ORCHESTRAS^MUSIC 45 i L l Scoreboard OF Bands on Blues & Rhythm Wax Kick Bat Ballroom Ops Aren’t Jumping 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 NOTE: The current comparative sales strength of the Artists and Tunes listed hereunder is arrived at under a statistical system comprising each of the three major sales outlets enur merated above. These findings are correlated with data from under 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 t]\e case of talent {disks, coin machines ), and three ways in the case of tunes (disks, coin machines, sheet music). POSITIONS This Last Week Week 1 1 2 2 3 4 4 3 5 5 6 7 6 8 9 9 7 10 8 TALENT ARTIST AND LABEL TERESA BREWER (Coral) PERRY 1 COMO (Victor)... JONTJAMES (MGM) PATTI PAGE (Mercury) GAYLORDS (Mercury) NAT (KING) COLE (Capitol) KAY STARR (Capitol) JULIUS LaRQSA (Cadence) . FRANKIE LAINE (Columbia). KAREN CHANDLER (Coral) TUNE . Till I Waltz Again (Don’t Let the Stars )Wild Horses Why Don’t You Believe Me ■ Have You Heard Wishing Ring Your Cheatin’ Heart , Doggie in the Window . Tell Me You’re Mine . Pretend , Side by Side Anywhere I Wander (I Believe ) I’m Just a Poor Bachelor Hold Me, Thrill Me, * Kiss Me TUNES ■ - POSITIONS This Last Week Week TUNE PUBLISHER 1 1 TILL I WALTZ AGAIN ". Village 2 2 DON’T LET THE STARS GET IN YOUR EYES Four Star 3 3 TELL ME YOU’RE MINE ?... Capri 4 4 DOGGIE IN THE WINDOW Santly-Joy, 5 .. PRETEND Brdndorii 6 5 KEEP IT A SECRET Shapiro-B 7 9 ANYWHERE I WANDER Frank 8 8 WHY DON’T YOU BELIEVE ME Brandom 9 6 OH HAPPY DAY BVC 10 7 HOLD ME, THRILL ME, KISS ME Mills i < ■■ ■■ 't If . Zodiac’s ‘Sunshine’ Breaking for Rif Further pointing up the wide- ; open-field nature of the current wax market for the indie disk com- pany, is the quick breakthrough of Zodiac’s etching of "Hello Sun- shine” by Norman Brooks. In less than, three weeks on the market, i disk has passed the 100,000 sales ; mark and is still going strong. ■j The indie was formed by Mel Howard and Lee Erwin, composers and publishers of the tune. IDeccasMopop On Kaye’s ‘Hans’ Danny Kaye's Decca albumiza- tioft of the Frank Loesser score from the Samuel Goldwyn pic, "Hans Christian Andersen,” is climbing rapidly in the bestselling bracket with over 210,000 sets turned over to date. It's the No. 1 pop album in the market despite the fact that the pic has opened in a small percentage of its potential play dates. Another unusual aspect of the album’s sales power is that it con- tains no hit singles by Kaye. Only one number, "Anywhere I Wan- i der,” from the score has broken ■through as a topseller and that’s j viS Julius La Rose’s cut for the . indie Cadence label. LOMBARDO’S BOFF B.O. ON ANNUAL JUNKET Guy Lombardo got off to fast start last week on the first leg of his third annual concert tour. The two-month swing, which wps kicked off in Vicksburg, Miss., Thursday (26), will include a two- week locafibn date at El RancHo, Las Vegas, at $25,000 per, before the package moves -eAst. In Vicksburg, Lombardo racked up $8,800 drawing 2,400 payees. The following night (Friday) in Monroe, La., band pulled in 2,150 people for a gross of $8,550. A socko $8,350 was racked up Satur- day (28) in Magnolia, Ark., and despite an all-day rain Sunday (1) in Beaumont, Tex., band drew a near-capacity crowd of 1,800 for a $6,000 gross. Lombardo continues on his swing through Texas this week. Pluggers to Resume Pact Talks With Pubs Confabs between the Music Pub- lishers Contact Employes Union and the Music Publishers Protec-, tive Assn, will be resumed this week. Talks came to a halt last month whefi MPCE prez Bob Mil- ler made his annual Coast trek. Miller returned to New York last week. The pluggers* pact with the pubs expired in December and the MPCE currently is dickering on several points added to the new contract. Among the clauses under discussion are pn increase in the minimum Wage agreement, a lengthening of the minimum period for which a pub can hire a plugger and a raisp in the maximum sev- erance pay. Spike Jones Pulls 16G - In Two Chicago Dates Chicago, March 3. Spike Jones hit a hefty $16,000 for two dates at the Opera House here last Friday and Saturday (27-28). Concerts played for Herb Car-* lin were way above last year and while Friday night was not a complete sell-out, Saturday was with 60 extra seats in the boxes and 100 chairs in the pit Roy Rogers will make a personal appearance on April 23 at the Will Rogers Memorial Coliseum, Fort Worth, for two performances. Thei* rhythm & blues styling. Which i^ias been making steady in- roads in the pop vocal wax picture. Is now .taking hold in the orch disk field, i Bands, heretofore identified with aJbouncy, lilting style, are in- creasingly switching to r. & b. ar- rangements for their shellac out- put. The orchsters figure that they can cash in on the r. & b. trend with the new styled waxings, especially on the jukebox level. The Buddy Morrow orch adopted the style several months ago and has moved into a top wax posi- tion as well as strong bargaining position for one-niters and loca- tion dates. Morrow clicked ini- tially In the r. & b. styling with "Greyhound” and since has been concentrating on similar diskings. Latest orchster to hop on the r. & b. bandwagon is Art Mooney, who cut four independent sides in that groove recently. Mooney, who’s pact with M-G-M Records ran out several months ago, Is stay- ing with M-G-M on these new disks. However, he feels that the r. A b. arrangements will be able to introduce Rim to an en- tirely new audiehce. Meantime, band agency and ball- room promoter reaction to the growing r. Sc b. switch is mixed. Ops feel that potential terpsters will get the wrong impression of a band’s ability to play straight dance music if they hear the orch be- forehand on the r. & b. platters. In selling orchs to ops lately, some agencies are finding it tough to convince buyers that the disks are no indication of what the band can do in a ballroom. "They’re forced to gimmick up their records for the jukeboxes,” one agency man pitched, "but* they can still play straight dance dates!” On the other hand, some agency men and ops contend that if the band scores on wax with an r. & b. disk, its b.o. values jump and the terp dates usually end up in the black. To the (RCA) Victor Distrib Winners Belong The Spoils—2 Sedans Two top distrib winners of RCA Victor’s syndicate store sales con- test, which increased the diskery's syndicate business 33% last fall and accounted for an 11% overall chainstore sales increase, are due to get Ford sedans for copping the sales prize. Winners, who will get the cars at regional ‘office meetings March 29-30, were Carl W. Ert- man, of the Main Line Cleveland Co., Cleveland, and S. A. Wallace, of the Yancey Co., Atlanta. Victor inaugurated the sales com- petitions ,as part of a long-range campaign to expand its chain store operations and also help the syndi- cates to develop their own disk de- partments. The sales hypo was particularly successful in areas where chain stores promoted Vic- tor’s 45 rpm Extended Play line. Lesser prizes included a $500 bond to Raymond Rosen Co., Phila- delphia, and the Nortwestern Auto Supply, Billings, Mont. A $100 bond goes to the RCA Victor Dis- tributing Corp., Detroit. Manie Sacks, general manager over the disk division, announced the prize- winners this week. INDUSTRY IN SALUTE TO VOL ROSSITER Chicago, March 3. Will Rossiter, dean of the U. S. music industry, will get an indus- trywide salute on the occasion of his 86th birthday March 15. Ed- die Ballantine, orch leader on Don McNeill's "Breakfast Club” on the ABC net, is lining up disk jockeys for the salute. Rossiter, who runs a publishing firm here under his own name, is the writer of such songs as "Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland” and "I’d Love to Live in Loveland.” Weston to N.Y, Paul Weston, Columbia Records Coast musical director, arrived in New York Monday (2) for a series of huddles with Col brass. Highlight of the confabs will be the planning of Col’s future pop album releases.