Variety (March 1956)

48 MUSIC Wednesday, March 7, 19^6 Even With 50c Tab, D.C. Hi-Fi Fan Ms 15,000 Buffs, Including Govt. Officials Washington, March 6. Over 15,000 fans paid 50c admis¬ sion charge and queued up pa¬ tiently to enter the industry ex¬ hibit suites of the Hotel Shoreham at the Washington High Fidelity Music Show the past weekend. Though attendance was not as high as last year’s show, which was cuffo, it was almost double the an¬ ticipated 8,000. In addition, ex¬ hibitors felt that the admission tab cut down on free-loaders, and brought out genuine hi-fi fans, and potential customers. Interesting angle of show was that it lured the capital's top offi¬ cialdom, as well as the average mu¬ sic lover. Sherman Adams, Presi¬ dent Eisenhower's top aide, and an almost legendary recluse, opened the fair Friday (2) evening with a speech. Adams is an ert-\ thusiastic music lover. Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission Lewis Strauss was another admin¬ istration topper glimpsed waiting in line to buy a ticket. Strauss might well have had a special in¬ terest in the show, since it fea¬ tured a radioactive gimmick to re¬ lease the magnetic' tape across tne entrance at the opening ceremony. About 50 exhibitors, mostly American, but with a few from Germany and England, filled the Hotel Shoreham with a cacophony of sound. The exhibit suites, spread over two floors of the hotel, covered every phase of hi-fi re¬ production and recording, plus a few quite unrelated fields, such as a “high fidelity” art exhibit. Over 250 new products in the field were displayed. Biggest crowds seemed to center around RCA’s exhibit, which featured color tv, and Tet¬ rad, which had an ingenious dis¬ play of its diamond pointed pho¬ nograph needle. The two-and-a-half day show was promoted by WGMS, town’s “Good Music” station, which an¬ nounced last week that It had be¬ come a Mutual affiliate. M. Robert Rogers, president of the station, was in charge of the show. Waring Pulls $6,500 In St. Loo One-Niter St. Louis, March 6. Fred Waring and his troupe grossed a fine $6,500 in a one-night stand at the Municipal Auditorium here Saturday night (3). House was scaled to a $3.50 top. Coral Repacts Bob Crosby Bob Crosby, who has been op¬ erating as a disk freelancer for a period, has signed a new recording contract with Coral. Crosby will cut the first sides with his band when he returns from a current stand at the Sa¬ hara, Las Vegas. PROGRAM TO-DAY YESTERDAY'S ON THE BEACH WITH YOU Music by JESSE GREER WORDS & MUSIC, Inc. 1270 Sixth Ave. New York 20 f--- Hub Plug | Boston, March 6. The Four Coins are getting a typical Boston plug for their Epic slicing of “T<?ar Down the Tent," backside of their clicko “Memories of You.” Although the disk has been out several months deejays in the Boston area started to lis¬ ten closely to the “Tent” side and picked out an allegedly “obscene” phrase in the lyric. A station in Boston banned the disk and retailers had it withdrawn from the stores. Those concerned with the tune claim the questionable phrase was caused by echo chamber trickery and that the deejays stretched- their .imagination .to • get the “dirty” interpretation. Rhythm & Blues Jocks Setting Up Own Assn. Following the pattern set by hill¬ billy disk jockeys, the rhythm & blues platter spinners have fotmed their own organization. Association, called the National' Jazz-Rhythm & Blues Assn., was launched in New York last week by 15 jocks, from various cities around the country. Jack Gibson, from WERD in Atlanta, was named, prexy. A national convention of the outfit has been set for Chicago May 18. While Negro jockeys still .pre¬ dominate in the r&b field, the new org, according to its spokesmen, will operate on the basis of “com-, plete disregard for race, creed or color in the selection of members.” The jockey assn, hopes to stimulate interest of bankrollers in the r&b market. Other officers of the association are Ken Knight, WRHC in Jack¬ sonville, exec vice-prexy; Tommy Smalls, WWRL in New York, vice- prexy; Jimmy Woods, WJIZ in Savannah, treasurer; and the firm of Joe Louis & Bill Rowe as nation¬ al publicity directors. Red Doff Pkge. to RCA Hollywood, March 6. RCA Victor has purchased a third custom album produced by Red Doff, featuring composer-con¬ ductor Harold Spina in “Carnival in Capri” and “Springtime in Paree.” Spina, vet tunesmith mak¬ ing his bow as a conductor on the package, gave his material a pop concert flavor. It’s the first all¬ instrumental album Doff has pro¬ duced. Last year, Doff produced “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam,” which Capitol purchased, and “Indian Love Lyrics” and “Lost Love Lyrics,” which was acquired by MGM Records. Sandburg Into ASCAP Poet Carl Sandburg, who has had several of his poems set to music, has been elected an ASCAP member. Among his songs are “Lost,” with musical setting by Jacques Wolfe, “Summer Stars,” music by Elinor W. Griffen, and “Upstream,” music by Albert Hay Malotte. LOUIS ARMSTRONG WOODY HERMAN CONCERT TOUR MARCH 9—New Haven, Cann.; 10—Worcester, Mass.; 11—Boston, Mass.; 12—Providence, R. I.; 13—Albany, N. Y.; 14—Utica, N. Y.; 15—Toronto, Can. TO BE FOLLOWED BY 25 OTHER MAJOR CITIES ASSOCIATED BOOKING CORPORATION JOE GLASER, Pres. New Y ° rl < I Chicago I Hollywood 0 & ' e Pl 9-4600 | 203 No. Wabash | 8619 Bl*d RETAIL SHEET BEST SELLERS -- PT&ilEff - Survey of retail sheet music best sellers based on reports obtained from leading stores in 13 cities and showing cony parative sales rating for this and last week. * ASCAP t BMI National Ratinr This Last wk. wk. Title and Publisher a rt o T O T A L P O I N T S 15 .13 *Mr. Wonderful (Laurel). 6 10 . .. .. 6 Song Sharks ^ Continued from page 41 -■ from $50 to $100, to help “exploit” the song by printing copies and getting a record. Most of the songsharks operate within the strict letter of the law by actually getting the songs “pub¬ lished.” : As it turns out, the pub¬ lishers usually are hole-in-the-wall operations which split the fees with the songsharks. Broadcast Music Inc., through Milton Rettenberg’s office, has been policing the BMI affiliates with the aim of cleaning out any songshark collaborators. A few firms already have been axed from the BMI list because Rettenberg discovered that the same names kept turning up on songs submit¬ ted for clearance. In one case, the songshark went to the trouble of printing elaborate¬ ly engraved copies of sheet music, but the notes on the copies were complete musical gibberish. A story in the Feb. 29 issue of Variety, headlined “Big Torch For New Songs,” has touched off nu¬ merous queries from all sorts of songwriters. The general tenor of all is: “How can I get my songs published?” « While the demand for new songs is strong, there’s still no auto¬ matic way of getting a tune pub¬ lished or recorded. As the pro¬ fessional writers are aware, selling a song is still a fulltime job and requires persistent knocking on publishers’ doors. The legitimate publishers prefer to deal with working songwriters. Although there have been infre¬ quent cases of unknowns walking off the street with a hit song, the percentage is so small that a pub¬ lisher might have to comb through several thousand amateur scripts before coming up with likely ma¬ terial. For the same reason, legitimate publishers rarely examine song’s submitted through the mail. In fact, they do not even open this material, in order to avoid any sub¬ sequent allegations of “stealing” or plagiarism. Finally, no legitimate publisher, whether ASCAP, BMI, Sesac or unaffiliated, will ever ask money from a songwriter to polish or publish a song. The request for coin as the price of a collaboration or publication is held by trade ex¬ perts as the sure hallmark of a songshark. ‘Hit Parade’ Lineup (On March 3 NBC-TV Show) .1. Rock & Roll Waltz Sheldon' 2. Libson Antigua .. Southern 3. Great Pretender .. Panther 4. No Not Much.Beaver 5. Memories This.. Montclare 6. Three Penny Opera .Harms 7. Band of Gold.Ludlow Inside Stuff—Music Tin Pan Alley received a very fancy definition from Federal Judge Mortimer W. Byers in the recent plagiarism case against Edith Piaf which the latter won. Byers said Tin Pan Alley “is seemingly a recog¬ nized metropolitan area in which musical products of dubious in¬ trinsic merit are exploited,” referring to allegations made by the plaintiff Frances Lampert that amateurs’ songs are freely lifted. Judge Byers dismissed the suit, which alleged that Miss Piaf’s tune, “’Cause I Love You,” was based on an unpublished number by Miss Lampert, and ordered the latter to pay legal costs. I. Robert Broder, represent¬ ing Miss Piaf, was granted $100 while Hofheimer, Gartlir & Hofheimer, representing Hollis Music, RCA Victor and Columbia, the other de¬ fendants in, the case, $250. Les Baxter’s Capitol record click got its tag, “Poor People of Paris,” because of a cabled freak. Original title of the French song is “La Goulant du Pauvre Jean,” literally “The Ballad of Poor John,” having to do with the Frenchman who winds up with the wrong dames, etc. But Cap’s Paris man cabled the Hollywood head office (of it came out'incorrectly in the. transmission) as “Pauvre Gens”—“gens” mean¬ ing “people.” Whereupon Cap forgot about “poor Jean,” hence the titular switch. - Rene Rouzand composed it and with his lyric collaborator pointed ( it up independently in-Paris as an unpublished work. Reg-Connelly owns the English-speaking territorial rights. ' Parisian observers of the music-on-film scene are touting, some tunes being turned out by French composer Marcel Stern for the celluloids. Among his latest efforts is the score for “Les Hommes en Blanc” (“The Men In White”) starring Raymond Pellegrin, Jeanne Moreau and Fernand Ledoux, [with Ralph Habib directing the Colum¬ bia-made pic soon to be released in the U. S. Stern is currently work¬ ing on “La Loi Des Rues” (“The Rule of the Streets”) starring Silvana Pampanini in a mood piece a la Marlene Dietrich’s “Blue Angel.” It’s called “Je Suis La Pourca” (“That’s My Job”). Stern’s producer is Paul Graetz. Epic Shuffles Staff In a reshuffling of sales spots .at Epic Records last week, Charles Schicke was shifted from the gen¬ eral merchandise manager’s post to sales manager of the album line. Walter Hayumj formerly the label’s eastern sales manager, moves in as general merchandise manager. Both will be based In Bridgeport, Conn, William Lawrence continues as sales manager of the single disk division in New York and Robert Demain will be Epic’s Coast sales manager based in Hollywood. Oldrick (Rick) von Seekamm was named office manager for the Bridgeport operation. All will report to William S. Nielsen, na¬ tional sales, director.