Variety (April 1953)

ORCHESTItAS-MUSIC 41 Wednesday, April 22, 195* v&RTtm For Revision of Payoff Plan Small Pubs, Without Cash or Clicks, ,. <5 Getting Squeezed Out of Music Biz tem used by the American Society of Composers, Authors & Publish- ers, top standard : educational pub- lishers are meeting regularly with ASCAP’s pub board members in an effort to reach some kind of Adjustment. ASCAP revenue .for the standard firms was lopped drastically hy the current accent on performances in place of the old "availability”, rating which rated songs by intangible “prestige” and "cultural” values. Since ASCAP’s new availability bracket, which accounts for 30% of the full publishers dividend, is based exclusively on a mathemati- cal count of plugs for all tunes over two years old, the standard; and “art” songs have lost out in the- performance ratings. A9 a result, the standard pubs are requesting a new weighting system which will favor the classical selections. Pop publishers on ASCAP’s board are understood ready to make concessions to the standard firms but not to the extent of fully restoring their former take. One of the issues now in dispute is the value to be given an “art” song. The pop pubs are willing to multi- ply the plug values of such num- bers but as yet have been unable to reach a satisfactory definition of an “art” song which would not also cover a pop oldie. Paul-Ford Team Hit 500,000-Plus Sales Clip On 13 Straight Disks With Capitol Records’ latest Les Paul-Mary Ford release, “I’m Sit- ting on Top of the World” and “Sleep,” currently moving at a hot sales clip into the" 500,000 sales bracket, the disk team is maintain- ing its record of pulling all its Cap releases over the 500,000 sales mark. ’ Since the duo initially broke Into the bigtime in 1951,13 releas'es, in- cluding the current platter, have passed the 500,000 sales figure with (wo disks, “Mocking Bird Hill” and “How High the Moon,” moving into the golden 1,000,000 sales bracket. Current sales total on latter platter now is 1,500,000. It’s their top seller. Paul-Ford disks which have passed the 700,000 sales figure are “Tennessee Waltz,” “Meet Mr. Cal- laghan,” “Lady of Spain ” “The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise,” and ‘Tiger Rag.” MEL ALIEN'S ‘CASEY’ KIDISK FOR GOLDEN Anent the opening of the base- ball season last week, sportcaster Mel Allen has been tagged by Golden Records, disk subsid of Simon & Schuster, to recite “Casey At The Bat” in a kidisk version. Allen will recite the first two stanzas of Ernest L. Thayer’s clas- sic poem and then switch to a play-by-play description of the in- ning in which Casey struck out. De Wolf Hopper made the original wax version of thp poem for RCA Victor almost 50 years ago. Eddy Howard to Lay Off 1-Niters for Some Time Chicago, April 21. Bandleader Eddy Howard, who was stricken with a heart attack last Friday (17) while playing the. Bock Island Auto Show, will take an extended rest before getting Jack into the business. Afterwards, he will confine his activities to making records and. will’ not do any personal appearances with the band for som§ time. tl , H . ow ^ r d was finishing a nine-day * W ! ien 116 became ill. Norman ee took over the baton for the rest w tlle engagement. Presser Music Forms Pop Tune Division Theodore Presser Co., standard and educational music firm, moved into the popular music field last week with the opening of a pop division. It’s the firm’s first move into the pop market since its incep- tion about 75 years ago. Bob Sadoff, contactman for Lau- rel Music, has been named general professional manager. He’ll head- quarter In New York. Presser’s main office is in Philly. Brit. Col Pacts Dario Soria In U.S. Distrib Deal British Columbia Records, a sub- sid of Electrical & Musical Indus- tries (EMI) in England, has final- ized Its U. S. distribution deal with Dario Soria, former head of Cetra- Soria Records. Soria will release British Columbia’s classical cata- log in this country via a new cor- poration, EMI Sales (U.S.), Ltd., in which he and Richard Dawes, of the British company, are directors. It’s understood that the new label will be called Angel Records. British Columbia formerly had an exchange deal with U. S. Co- lumbia but the latter company ended the deal a couple of months ago for a hookup with the Philips Co. of Holland which will handle the U. S. disks in England and on the Continent. Soria recently sold out his interest in the Cetra-Soria catalog of operatic recordings to Capitol Records. BROADWAY SUES VOGEL OVER SPLIT RENEWALS Broadway Music filed suit in N. Y. Federal Court last week against publisher Jerry Vogel and tunesmith Jack Norworth for back royalties on several copyrights penned hy the late Albert Von Tilzer and Norworth. In 1936 Broadway and Vogel agreed to a 50-50 split on the royalties when Norworth authorized Vogel to pick up the renewals. Broadway now alleges that Norworth had no right to authorize the transfer of the renewals to Vogel. Tunes,. “Take Me Out To The Ball Game,” “Honey Boy,” “Smarty” and “Good Evening Charlie,” originally were placed in Von Tilzer’s York Music, a subsid of the firm. Red Buttons Opens Pubbery for Col Tunes TV comic Red Buttons, who hit the wax market last week via his Columbia Records etching, “Strange Things Are Happening” and “The Ho-Ho Song,” has formed his own pubberies, Arbee and Helayne Mu- sic. Initial tunes In the firms, of course, are “Happening,” which was placed with Helayne and “Ho-Ho,” which went to Arbee. Both firms are affiliated with the American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers. Buttons is the second tele comic in recent months to move into the publishing field. Jackie Gleason formed Jaglea Music for the pub- lication of his composition, “Mel- ancholy Mood.” Arbee, incidentally, is an anagram of Buttons’ initials, while Helayne is his wife’s mo- nicker. Music biz execs believe that the “gimmick era” has.now reached the end of its tether. After some two years. of dominance, by echo chambers, multiple-voice tracks and other trick new sounds, the music business is reverting back to the solid fundamentals—the good song and the good interpretation. Belief by trade toppers that the gimmicks are fading is substan- tiated by the current hit lists. The tunes that are coming up the fast- est are in the class bracket and they are breaking through via in- strumental versions and’ straight vocals. In no case is electronic wizardry overshadowing the. song material as was the case when the gimmicks were running wild on wax. The No. 1 disk, Patti Page’s “Doggie in the Window,” uses dog barks but that’s considered the last gasp of 4he recent cycle, although even in this case, it’s maintained that? the barking is secondary to the tune’s idea and Miss 'Page’s rendition. ’ There is no ambiguity, however, about the class values of such current tunes as “I Believe.” “April in Portugal,” “The Song From Moulin Rouge” and “Ruby,” which are making a run to the top of the hit lists. Publishers and songwriters are welcoming the new trend since it reestablishes their role as 'pro- ducers of material. In the era of gimmicks, the artists & repertoire man and his recording engineer could take more credit for the final sound on disks than the tunesmith. While the gimmicks are becom- ing passe, the same doesn’t hold true of the cornball songs. These still have a firm grip on the hit lists and music execs expect that they always will since the country cleffers propound fundamental messages in an easily understood lyrical and melodic framework. 49-Cent Kidisks Propped By Col Columbia Records is. planning to hit the kidisk field shortly with a new 49c line to supplement its regular $1 juve platters. Low- priced series will most likely be Issued on 45 rpm platters. Top Col execs have recently been studying the economics of a 49c kiddie line and will probably make their move shortly. Last fall, RCA Victor released 49c kidisks on the Bluebird label. The lowest price platters in this field are issued by Simon & Schus- ter’s wax subsid, Golden Records, which markets a 25c disk. ' Okeh Tags June Anthony Okeh Records, Columbia subsid, has added Cleveland thrush June Anthony to its artists’ stable. Miss Anthony cuts her first sides for the label today (Wed.). Kay Thompson & Co. Wax for Coast Indie Allied Records, indie Coast label, has pacted Kay Thompson & The Williams Bros, to an exclusive wax- ing deal. The nitery team pre- viously had recorded several sides for Columbia. Allied is the diskery which kicked off “Say You’re Mine Again” with The Three Dons & Ginny Greer. Victor Mulling New Label For Rhythm & Blues ‘Top echelon huddles are cur- rently under way at RCA Victor over an idea to set up additional labels in the non-classical field. Itte understood that one of the proposed new labels would be targeted for the rhythm & blues field. If the Victor execs concretize this project, it will not he tied to the new quasi-indie label, as yet unnamed, for which Joe Carlton is artists & repertoire chief. Latter subsid will be active in all mar- kets, except the classical, under an independent distrib setup. Victor currently has an exten- sive rhythm & blues artists roster and wants to pitch for this market with maximum strength. Exec thinking is that a separate label might focus more attention on this merchandise line. A jazz reissue label is not in the wprfcs since Vic- tor's name in this field is very strong with collectors. Greater accent on this operation, however, was pointed up by the recent ap- pointment of George Frazier to handle special projects, such as culling old masters from the Vic- tor archives into jazz sets. DORSEY BROS. TEE OFF . JOINT BAND IN MAY Knoxville, April 21. Cementing an 18-year separa- tion, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey have sealed a pact to Reunite under one name. They originally split up in 1935. They will call themselves “The Fabulous Dorseys,” accord- ing to Jimmy Dorsey. He is in Knoxville after playing for a Uni- versity of Tennessee spring dance last night (Mon.). They will make their first ap- pearance' together May 13 at Huntington, Pa. They are getting together in order to cut expenses. Vince Carson, night club crooner, will make his wax debut via the indie Cadillac label. Faced with tough competition in a narrowing market, a flock of small indie pubs are planning to fold their tents and fade out of the music biz picture in the next year or so. In the last two years, especially, there’s been an influx of new pubberies formed by music men who’ve been put at liberty due to the cutdown of personnel by the larger firms. For the most part, the new pubs have been operating on shoestrings waiting for the “hit.” Time and capital, however, are running out and many of the newer group of pubs admit that they can’t hold out any longer. Even those who received deals from Broadcast Music, Inc., are ready to throw in the towel claim- ing that BMI won’t pick them up for another year when their Initial contract term is up. The smaller pubs, who've been pointing to the recent break- trough of Sid Prosen’s Village Mu- sic with “Till I Waltz Again With You” as an example of how a smalltimer can hit the bigtime, are growing less optimistic as- they realize that it's a 1,000-to-one shot that it can happen to them. Compe- tition from thg established firms and the will-o-the-wisp, quality ‘of the current wax market are prov- ing too much for their slim pocket- books. It's also reported that several .medium-sized pubs are considering selling out their operations if the right deal for their ’catalogs comes along. Prospective buyers are now rating catalogs at five to seven times their annual Ameri- can Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers payoff which means that a catalog netting an average $5,000 a year from ASCAP is worth from $25,000 to $35,000. Chi Disker Challenges Copyright Act in Fight Vs. Infringement Charges Chicago, April 21. Contention that the compulsory licensing feature of the Copyright Act is unconstitutional is the high- light of the answer’ that Mort Schaeffer, defendant’s attorney, filed in Chicago Federal Court last week in reply to charges that James M. Martin, record whole- saler, had Infringed on several music publishers’ tunes. Harry Fox had filed action on behalf of Bourne, Robbins and Paramount, claiming that Martin had repro- duced, without permission, “Stompin’ at the Savoy,” “Here Comes My Ball and Chain” and “In a Little Second-Hand Store.” Schaeffer maintains that there Is an abridgement of the Constitu- tion in that after the copyright proprietor has once permitted the recording or printing of his mate- rial he has no control over it; that anyone may reproduce it without his permission. Lawyer said “taking away from. the copyright proprietor exclusive rights to make any arrangement or setting of it, or the melody of it, in any system by notation or in any form of record in which the thought of an author may be re- corded and from which it may be read or reproduced, is unconstitu- tional.” AMES BROS. EXITING CORAL TO JOIN RCA • Ames Bros., vocal quartet, is moving out of Coral Records to join RCA Victor’s artists’ roster. Combo will make the move the middle Of May when.their Coral pact expires. Group has been one of Coral’s bestsellers on wax. In making the switch Ames Bros, will be the first male vocal combo to appear on the pop Victor label in recent years. Mime Song Hits—1894-1952 (According to Encyclopedia of American History, edited by Richard B. Morris ( Harper) On The Sidewalks Of New York (w & m by Charles B. Lawlor and James W. Blake) 1894 Stars And Stripes Forever (John Philip Sousa) 1897 Sweet Adeline (w—Richard Gerard (Husch); m—Harry Arm- strong) 1903 Take Me Out To The Ballgame (w—Jack Norworth; m—Albert von’ Tilzer) 1908 Ah! Sweet Mystery Of Life (w—Ridea Johnson Young; m—Victor Herbert) 1910 A Perfect Day (Carrie Jacobs Bond) 1910 When Irish Eyes Are Smiling (w—Chauncey Olcott and George Graff, Jr.; m—Ernest R. Ball) 1912 St. Louis Blues (W. C. Handy) 1914 Dinah (w—Sam M. Lewis and Joe Young; m—Harry Akst) 1925 OF Man River (w—Oscar Hammerstein 2d; m—Jerome Kern) 1927 Stardust (w—Mitchell Parish; m—Hoagy Carmichael) 1929 * Easter Parade (Irving Berlin) 1933 God Bless America (Irving . Berlin) 1939 White Christmas (Irving Berlin) 1942