Variety (May 1954)

♦ ♦ Wednesday, May 5, 1954 (&IL Scoreboard TOP TALENT AND TUNES * ^ V 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 sale* strength o) 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 toiih data from wider 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 the case of talent (disks, coin machines ), and three ways in the case of tunes (disks, coin machines, sheet musicL TALENT POSITIONS This Last Week Week ARTIST AND LABEL TUNE POSITIONS This Last Week Week PERRY COMO (Victor) Wanted PATTI PAGE (Mercury) Cross Over The Bridge FRANK SINATRA (Capitol) j?CoufdHa^ToldYou JO STAFFORD (Columbia) Make Love To Me FOUR KNIGHTS (Capitol) I Get So Lonely KAY STARR (Capitol) InYouClty Love Me KITTY KALLEN (Decca) Little Things Mean A Lot TONY MARTIN (Victor) Here _____ (Answer Me, My Love NAT (KING) COLE (Capitol) ) It Happens To Be Me . AMES BROS. (Victor) Man With The Banjo TUNES (♦ASCAP. fBMI) TUNE publisher ♦WANTED Witmark f YOUNG AT HEART Sunbeam ♦CROSS OVER THE BRIDGE Laurel ♦I GET SO LONELY. Melrose ♦MAKE LOVE TO ME . Melrose ♦ANSWER ME, MY LOVE Bourne fHERE : Hill 8c Range ♦SECRET J.OVE Remick fMAN WITH THE BANJO Mellin ♦LITTLE THINGS MEAN A LOT Feist 10 Best SeDers on Coin-Machines WANTED (9) I GET SO LONELY (12) MAKE LOVE TO ME (14) ...1 YOUNG AT HEART (10) CROSS OVER THE BRIDGE (10) .. HERE (5) A GIRL, A GIRL (4) MAN UPSTAIRS (1) LITTLE THINGS MEAN A LOT (1) JILTED (1) Second Croup ANSWER ME, MY LOVE MAN WITH THE BANJO IF YOU LOVE ME (REALLY LOVE ME) SECRET LOVE I REALLY DON'T WANT TO KNOW TILL WE TWO ARE ONE I'D CRY LIKE A BABY my sin ; NO TEARDROPS TONIGHT ISLE OF CAPRI SOMEWHERE • • SOMEBODY BAD STOLE DE WEDDING BELL FROM THE VINE CAME THE GRAPE ANEMA E CORE DAkKTOWN STRUTTERS BALL ^Figures in parentheses indicate number of weeks song ' EP . . . . 4 A ▲ * * A A A A A A Perry Como Victor Four Knights Capitol Jo Stafford Columbia Frank Sinatra Capitol Patti Page Mercury Tony Martin Victor Eddie Fisher Victor Kay Starr Capitol Kitty Kailen Decca Teresa Brewer Coral Nat (King) Cole Capitol Ames Bros Victor Kay Starr .... T.. .Capitol Doris Day Columbia Les Paul-Mary Ford Capitol Georgie Shaw Decca Dean Martin Capitol Georgia Gibbs , Mercury Tony Bennett Columbia Gaylords Mercury Lou Monte Victor Georgia Gibbs Mercury Hilltnppers Dot Eddie Fisher Victor Lou Monte Victor has been in the Top 10] Spelling It Out RCA Victor is prepping early release of an unusual op- eratic album under the title “Arias—Sung and Acted.” Se- lections from a group of popu- lar operas will be sung by reg- ular operatic warblers, but each selection will be preceded by a translation spoken h by Broadway thespers. Set features the voices of Licia Albanese, Jussi Bjoer- ling, Robert Merrill and Leon- ard Warren, with narrations by Deborah Kerr, Joseph Cotten and Dennis King. Paris, May 4. This has been a good season for hot jazz In the modern and swing grooves with the Rot Club of France and private Brokers getting in a batch of U. S. names. Season has so far seen Lionel Hampton, Stan Kenton, Count Basie, Norman ! Granz’s “Jazz at the Philharmonic" troupe with Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday, and last week saw Woody Herman’s orch (17) in a one-night recital at the immense Salle Pleyel. Gallic jazz fans are a vociferous Tot and quite audible in their, likes and dislikes. Tastes are all pre* conditioned by disks and Hot Club publications. Negro copibo* are regarded as the "genuine" pur- veyors of jazz. This militated N V flrrla Ftinc 119fti Yaar against the acceptance of Herman’s 11.1• UILDLUUb ll&UI teal band Though Herman has a On Bullish Note; Lost Only was quite unresponsive. Herman mm /»in • \ 1 PA/9 also had to overcome a Are in the Mere I Whopping1 lOUli lobby and some booing from a. The N. Y. Philharmonic-Sym- phony, oldest orch in the U. S., the |J re g a i] er y-tyDe ^showman- wound up its 112th season at Car- hi h f lba a t he „ nesie Hall N. Y„ last Sunday .2) !f. n . a note, s -?* te ,,r n tu here and his music intensely ana- ticipated $150,000 deficit <For the I zcd but nobod Mnt them uke | previous season 1952-53, deficit ■ Hampt0I1 or Basie. , was around $107,0001. , Na , (Kjng) ^ faced the I Bullish feeling, according to co- ‘ French mob at the Palais De Chail- | manager Bruno Zirato, is due to . lot April 27, backed by the French jfact that,, despite slumps injjazz band of Hubert Rostaing. | other branches of entertainment, J There were early and late evening {subscriptions for the season went performances with the first show I $10,000 over last year and single | 0 kay. but the second jammed and (sale was $13,000 up. Single-sale! constituting a showmanship tri- ! increase was the biggest (and pleas- j umph Jay Cole. Though known ! antest) surprise. , here only by disks, he got out the | Increased expenses pushed this j hep Gallic theatrical crowd plus j season’s deficit so high. Musicians’ .* the younger jazz set Show start- j minimum was raised from $130 to Jed slow with a half hour of music $140 a we*ek (next season it goesj by Rostaing’s crew, which doesn't to $145, with orch also nicked for ] shine in any department warrant- increased costs), and union insisted ; ing this concert status, on the season being extended two J Some of the younger set got j weeks, from 28 to 30, adding to the > vociferous, but then Cole came on I costs. Orch's budget for ’53-’54 . to right things, j ran around $1,200,000. * Concert showed that early shows ! Management is also pleased that, ?f e ,,. not * n timetable of the i the Friends of the Philharmonic f Gallic set and a well-publicized late was able to raise $123,000 in a pub-1 S “°'Y 15 thing. Future U. S. lie fund drive (goal was $140,000) j mu sic people coming in this season this year. Last year it raised i ^ re y Anthony, Harry James, 110G; year before, $80,000. Orch £,ex Ben «ke, Spike Jones, Lena gained $32,000 for its Pension Fund Horne and the Inkspots. in two SRO special concerts, with _ _ _ _ $19,000 brought in from an Artur Dpff A $ PAR TIFIIP ON Rubinstein-orch concert and $13,- ^ ItUi IICUl UN 000 from the Steinway Centennial DANNY If AYF*Q TTNAPIT* bash. Receipts from broadcasts D/tNlll HJII4 j tJ AifUvA and recordings also helped swell Decca has set a joint exploita- the b.o. Uke from ticket sales. But tion campaign with Paramount Pic- expenses ran ahead of inUke, for tures for Danny Kaye’s album of 150G. And, according to sym phony execs, there’s no remedy. tunes from the film “Knock On Wood." Set will be issued in July to tie in with the pic’s national re- MrDrCD TA All irn lease. It is currently in pre-re- nfir.KI.r.K |U ALLlbU lease hookings in top theatre show- cases AS A&R DIRECTOR ba ^ n & Johnny Mercer, one of the sen,” was a Decca bestseller for founders of Capitol Records and seven consecutive months last year. still a member of that company’s board of directors, has now joined the indie Coast label. Allied Rec- ords, as artists & repertoire direc- tor headquartering in Hollywood. Mercer used to cut vocal sides for Capitol until a couple of years ago, Bill Zeitung in Charge Of RCA’s Packaged Disks uapitoi unui a couple oi years ago, | In B f‘ e a he industry’s and now will resume singing on increasingaccent on packaged mer- wax for Allied. chandise in all-fields, RCA Victor ^ . ■ will step up its output of pop al- Latter diskery, meantime, has , jj loi!™ ty ^Tlormerlv ‘“wfth SSt has been c’reaud ?“r Bm Songstiess vas formerly with ...in i»uh MGM Records. Zeitung who will work closely with Joe Carlton, pop artists & reper- toire chief, in mapping the pop rets. Setup is similar .to that of Columbia Records where George Avakian is director of pop album luiii/O in i ivivi uvi, repertory. t nnm Jack Lewis, who was brought in Ernesto Lecuona, Cuban com- . , j j ; . vr t ,i /„ A m KStf. ii om tnc Co&st' l3$t montri to work poser, Is due in New York from njs . 41 * ^ home in Havana at the end of this | ^am wnrnow held this operatiom Lecuona to Etch Own Tunes in Victor Set month to wax several albums for RCA Victor. The Lecuona sets I will feature his keyboarding on his compositions. While in Gotham, Lecuona will huddle with Victor artists & reper- toire staffers on upcoming Latino albums. / Cap Execs to S.A. * Hollywood, May 4. album releases monthly, including reissues and newly recorded works. 4 Aces’ Hot ’3 Coins’ The Four Accs have come up with their fastest-selling platter since they joined Decca in their current release, “Three Coins In The Fountain," theme song from the 20th-Fox pic of the same title. Sandor Porges, he^d of Capitol Disk’has already gone over 250,000 Records’ international division, and since its release three weeks ago Floyd Biftaker, head of the inter- and is still building on the basis national division’s Hollywood of- of reorders. fice, are in Squth America on an extended business trip. Plattery execs are huddling with “Three Coins" has received un- usually wide coverage in this era of exclusives with ’every major Capitol affiliates in South America j company issuing versions with top on upcoming release schedules. | artists.