Variety (June 1955)

Wednesday Jane 29, .1955 4 * Smarting over the cracks made by several a&r men that the pub- !. Ushers were pulling dlpsyrdoodles by reneging on “exclusive” prom-* * jses, the music men are claiming-that it’s the recording men who • are forcing the “double-crosses” upon themselves. One publisher wrapped it up this way: - “-We’re left with no alter- native but to go to other companies. In many cases in a&r man will ask for a tune ‘exclusive’ and close the deal with ‘I'll let you ’ know in three weeks.’ The three weeks pass and then we can’t get the guy on the phone so we show the song to . another recording • man. in other instances, the a&r man’s choice of artist may* be wrong for the song and rather than Jet the tune die we bring it to • another company. And instill other instances, the.recording'man ' will cut the tune, but will sit on a release date until we begin to. - wonder of the record will come' out at all. So we bring it to a ' rival company.” " Talent in Mutual Buildup The networks are tying in closer* their disk company affiliates these days. Over'at CBS and NBC, the programming execs are keeping a closer eye on their waxery :affilt- ate’s roster for chances to build a radio or' tv stanza around ’em. The plug values for the disk firm when one of their pactee? gets on a national hookup is continually growing, especially on tv, and trad- ers are now speculating whether the shellac bigwigs'are pressuring the nets for help. Latest example of the “buddy sys- tem” was displayed lhst week when CBS rush-paeted Columbia artists &‘ repertoire chief Mitch Miller to replace Rudy Vallee on “The Kraft Music Hall.”" Vallee ankled the show because he couldn't get the say-so on the disks to be pro- grammed, Industryites now will be keeping a close ear to the kind of wax Miller will be spinning to see if the preference goes to the Col output Miller went into the “Kraft.” spot Sunday (26). ’ Other Col rosterltes, who’ve been set by the parent net are Percy Faith and Frankie Laine. Faith, a Col musical director and disker, kicked- off -a new radio show a few weeks ago while Laine is pen- ciled in to replace the Arthur God- frey tv-er on Wednesday nights for eight weeks beginning July 20. Over at NBC-TV, RCA Victor artists'Vaughn Monroe and Matt Dennis have been set for summer replacement shows. Dennis, a re- cent Victor pactee, kicked off his new three-times-weekly show Mon- day (27) while Monroe starts a twice weekly July 19. In the fall, NBC .will again have Eddie Fisher and launch a new Saturday night show with Perry Como. In the, past both Fisher and Como have used their tv outings to “lay on” their current releases. Other diskers with shows on parent nets are Victor's Dinah Shore on NBC-TV and Columbia’s Joe Stafford and Rosemary Clooney. Artists on rival labels aren’t ex- actly being brushed off in favor of affiliated artists. For example, Stan Kenton, a Capitol pactee, has a show going for him this summer on CBS-TV andl the same Web. also pacted Nat (King) Cole, another C«pitol artist for 10 exclusive guest shots' during the coming, season. But artists with labels that have no net tie-ups figure that the odds are better for a radio-tv stanza if there is an affiliation. ABC’s new label, Am-Par, will probably have the same network tieup.. NAN WYNN IS CURED OF ILLNESS; INKED BY RCA Nan Wynn, songstress who made a comeback fight after being stricken with a facial tumor a cou- ple of years ago, has been inked to a disk pact by. RCA Victor, Miss Wynn was formerly vocalist with the Hal Kemp band and was also used as the dubbed soundtrack voice in several Hollywood films. . Miss Wynn’s complete recovery from her ailment was a medical rarity and was detailed in various medico journals. MPPA Douglas Recuping Walter Douglas, chairman of the Music Publishers Protective Assn,, is,, expected to leave Brooklyn fN.Y.) Hospital this week- after re- covering from a kidney ailment. He’ll be back at his desk next week. More Plattdr "Samplers’; Camden Offers Mixture Platter “samplers” are coming into increasing vogue as merchan- dise pushers among the major disk companies. Most recent entry is an 89c 12-inch LP-issued by RCA’s Camedn label and containing a mixture of pop, semi-classical and longhair recordings: Departing from the usual Camden package design, which contains nq..program notes, the sampler has a "nap-type envelope with a liner giving the background of the label. , Columbia Records has had a standout success with its 98c “I Like Jazz”, sampler, a 12-inch LP containing a varied repertoire of jazz.- >It has sold over 100,000 copies. ft.CA Victor was the first to issue a jazz sampler last year. Latter was sold for 10c and con- tained ' selections . from current Victor jazz albums. AH ‘Fires’ CBS Lud Gluskin, CB$-T V musical director on the Coast, w&s hit this week by the American Federation of Musicians for making tran- scribed cue and bridge music with- out union permission. AFM pre"xy James C. Petrillo ordered him to resign from his job, a power given to the AFM by the union’s pact with the .web. In any case, Glus-: kin, who backgrounds the “I Love Lucy” show, would find it impos- i sible to get AFM musicians to" work under him as long as the AFM stigma was on him; Petrillo accused Gluskin of de- liberately violating AFM regula- tions. The AFM chieftain, in his wire to Gluskin, said the latter was fully aware of what he was doing in view of the fact that he made the bridges at a New York session under the “subterfuge” of making commercial disks. KAYE AT PALLADIUM SET FOR DECCA WAX London, June 28. Danny Kaye, whose eight weeks’ London Palladium stint is a sell- out, is having his entire perform- ance recorded from the stage for release by U. S. Decca (Brunswick in Britain). Kaye will be accompanied by the Skyrockets, the resident Palladium orch, and his own pianist,'Sammy Praeger. Si Rady, director of ah bums for American Decca, is scheduled to arrive in London this week to supervise the. recording. Victor Tags Orestes, Crooner in Par Pic Orestes, the mono-tagged screen crooner who’ll debut * m Par- amount’s “The Vagabond King,” has been tapped by RCA Victor to a longterm pact. Diskery will also release the. soundtrack album of the pic. Score for the vintage* musical was. penned originally by .Rudolf Friml, Russell Jahney and Brian Hooker. Additional songs were penned by Friml and Johnny Rl-nnlr ¥ Victor, Decca to Use 10-Inch LP Platters Despite Col Closeout Although Columbia Records is closing out its iQ-inch LP platters via its current $1 sale, the other major companies plan to continue, release of such albums. The 10-, inch LPs, however, have been de-, dining in importance' and where-;, ever possible,' the majors prefer tp issue the 12-inch LP* Both RCA Victor and Decca, both of which are holding the’ line on.lO-inch Lp prices despite Col’s sale, will still use the 10-inch LP size. Decca, for instance, recently issued the Walt Disney score for “The Lady and The Tramp” on a 10-iricher because it was the right fit. For some time, however, Victor has been -repackaging many of its 10-inch platters, to 12-inch- LPs. Latter. size is yore attractive to the customers since it gives them j more for their money. The emer- gence of tlie EP and EP album also, has been a factor in reducing the sales stature of the 10-inch LP. RCA’s subsid, Label X, which has issued a few dozen 10-inch .albums of jazz oldies under its “Vault Original” series, will prob- ably *use Jhe 12-inch size for future releases*. Radio Moscow In Berlin, June 28. The shortwave radio station at Moscow, which is often monitored here, is now offering new programs of continuous light music; loaded with jazz, rhythm and the plues. The swing to swing started June, 17 with an unusual solid, seven hours of music, and ha? been continuing ever since. While the local German radio, stations offer some programs of classical and light music, they are often criticized by listeners for ar- ranging an unbalanced load of less appealing programs of lectures, old plays and dry speeches. As a result many German listen-, ers have been won over to listening to the U/ S.-sponsored American Forces Network, which fills a large part of its day with music. Moscow Radio is now thought to be. making inroads on the German and AFN listening'audience by giving them the latest hit records and numbers from top musical shows. In- some cases, AFN ' personnel pointed out that the Moscow radio is in advance of .the U. S. group— new pop records are being- beamed out from Moscow before even'the platters have reached AFN here. And when in some instances show tunes from U. S. musicals are banned over AFN (under a British publishers’ agreement which stipu- lates that music from certain U. S. musicals cannot be played over AFN until the show appears in London), this banned music is aired regularly from Moscow. No one quite understands the Russian swing to jazz, since Mos- cow recently branded it as “typical psychopathic bedlam from the de- cadent West.” Dailey Pegs Bookings On CBS-TV Band Show . Frank Dailey, owner of the Meadowbrook, Cedar .Grove, N. J. f is pegging his bookings on CBS- TV’s summer show, “America’s Greatest Bands.” Show, which re-, placed the Jackie Gleason hour last Saturday (25), uses four bands a night afid Dailey is trying to line up as many as possible for his ballroom to cash in on the tele exposure. Dailey has already set Ralph Marterie, Ralph Flanagan, Art Mooney, Ray Anthony and Russ Morgan. GOLDEN JUBILEE YEAH MUSIC 43 S?les Rep for Classics In a move to promote its long- hair merchandise, Decca Records has added a. special sales rep for its Goltf Label division. Erna Katz been jiamed to this specially created post by Decca sales chief .Sydney N. Goldberg to handle promotion and sales for classical releases. . * ' .' Miss .Katz formerly was as- sociated with Urania Records, , an indie longhair label, where she was in charge of production and artists relations. Gold Aims Shafts Directly at Decca Joseph Gold, owner of 200 shares' of Decca Records stock, who launched a legal battle against the Music Performance Trust .Fund set- up in New York Federal Court last week, is now tilting against the Decca managements directly. Gold filed suit in N. Y. Supreme Court last week, charging the Dec- ca board with “mismanagement” of the diskery’s affairs* Gold’s specific target was the employment 'contract of Decca prexy Milton R. Rackmil. Under terms of this pact, Rackmil, who is also president of Universal Pic- tures, devotes one-third of his time to the diskery and two-thirds to the picture company,' which is controlled by Decca, Rackmil gets $42,000 from Decca and $80,000 from Universal annually. ' Gold also charged that Rackmil used $300,000“ in Decca funds to finance his successful proxy fight against George L. Lloyd'"'Ejv. 1954 when Lloyd, tried to unseat Rack- mil. Gold also claimed that Dec- ca’s purchase of Universal stock was designed just to aggrandize Rackmil. ' ' Gold meantime received support in his fight against the Music Per- formance-Trust Fund from a CBS. stockholder,- A. Edward Morrison. Like Gold, Morrison wants ; the courts to Suspend the disk indus- try’s payments to the Fund on the grounds that it violates the Taft- Hartley Act, which bans the pay- ment of royalties to, union-con- trolled funds. The MPTF is run. by an industry-appointed trustee, Samuel R. Rosenbaum, but the plaintiffs charge the American Fed- eration of Musicians, in substance, controls, the operation of the. Fund, COL DICKERS DORIS DAY FOR DISK PACT RENEWAL Hollywood, June 28. Negotiations are under way be- tween Columbia Records and Doris Day for renewal of thrush’s pact with the diskery. Her current Col pact winds up Thursday (30). Capitol has been eyeing Miss Day for some time and it’s reported that if she resigns Col, Cap will have the inside track. Marty Mel- cher/Miss Day’s husband-manager, has close friends in,, Cap’s top echelon. Tillstrom Xmas Set On Thurber Tale for Decca ' Chicago, June 28. ’ Decca is already preparing a Christmas package with its slicing of a Christmas day show presented by Burr Tillstrom, of the “Kukla, Fran & Ollife” show, on the ABC- TV network last year. Package, which will contain Tillstrom’s adaptation of Janies Thurber's children tale, “Many Moons,” is being cut this week. Tillstrom will do all eight speaking parts in the Thurber story, which will take up one side of the disk, On the other side, iris partner, Fran Allison* uid sing a group of Christmas songs. •» > While some of the younger pub- lishers are trying to latch onto copyright renewals via attractive coin deals to writers, the oldline publishers retain a powerful bar- gaining lever In. their possession of the foreign rights' Latter rights are not subject to the usual 28- year first-term renewal since the publisher operates under the gen- eral foreign convention under which copyrights endure for 50 years after the songwriter’s death. The top oldline firms, which pos- sess the important copyrights i which are now coining up for re- newal,, are trying to impress song- writers with the importance of not splitting the U* S, and foreign rights between different publish- ers. In one case, a picture com- pany was cooled off from buying a tune for a musical because the U. S. rights were controlled by a new publishes and the' foreign .rights by the original publisher. The latter firm, as an object lesson, asked a stiff price for the foreign rights and the pic company didn’t buy the tune. In many cases, however, the songwriters can’t resist the front money being offered to switch their copyrights to other firms. Standard advance by the newer publishers is sfet at seven/to 10 times the amount of annual coin a tune earns the publisher on performances. In addition the newer publishers offer fancy copy royalty deals and fre- quently set up partnerships with the writers or their estates. Jean & Julian Aberbach, for in- stance, have set up a firm, Daniels Music, with the estate of the late Charles N. Daniels (Neil Moret) to handle, his copyright renewals. Daniels’ share of “Sweet and Love- ly,” on which he collaborated with Harry Tobias and the late Gus Arn- heim, is due to go into the Aber- bach operation when the, first copyright term expires in’ 1959. Tune is currently owned by Rob- bins Music of the Big Three (Rob- bins, Feist & MillerJ. The AbCr- bachs have also set up a firm with songstress Margaret Whiting to handle the available copyright re- newals on numbers written by her father, the late Richard A; Whit- ing. SHAW SPARKS MARKS WITH MR TECHNIQUE Arnold Shaw, who recently swung over from Hill & Range to E. B. Marks Music as general pro- fessional manager, is now sparking the Marks’ firm via tune biivs wherever possible, a policy that marks the, H&R operation. Shaw has just picked. up his second tune in a couple of weeks in “Two Things I Love,” a number etched by> the Ernie Freeman hand for Cash Records, an indie label. Tune, also cut by The Cardinals for At- lantic and The Gadabouts for Wing Records, was written by Freeman and John Dolphin. Show previously picked up “fiddly Patter Patter,” which was originally cut by Nappy Brown for Savoy and has since picked up a few more versions, including one by Patti Page for Mercury. Schuster Joins Paxton As Professional Mgr. Wally Schuster switched to George Paxton from Nat Tannen last week. He took over as pro- fessional manager of the Paxton firms, replacing Marvin Cane who ankled several weeks ago to join Bourne Music. Schuster had been associated for the past several years. He’s the son of' the late songwriter, Ira Schuster. Kapp. Builds Roster Kapp Records has inked Benny Payne, piano accompanist of sing- er Billy Daniels, to an exclusive deal. Dave Kapp, head of the label, has also inked Ruthie Price, a cafe songstress from Philadelphia, and Joanne Wheatley and Hal Kan- ner, formerly with the Fred War- ing organization.