Variety (May 1956)

Wednesday, May 9, 1956 P^SRIETY iirsic 41 GOLDEN AGE FOR EDUC’L MUSIC Loessers lost Happy Partners Frank Loesser, who has another click in his current legit musi¬ cal, “The Most Happy Fella,” had advance insurance of plenty of disk jockey plugs for the show score. In an offbeat promotion for the venture, Loesser gave key jockeys around the co.untry a chance to buy a piece of the show. And many of them did invest, thus giving them a personal stake in spinning the tunes. Loesser also made the same offer to the artists & repertoire chiefs of the major disk companies. A couple of the a&r boys took advantage of the opportunity. Whether that was any influ¬ ence in Loesser getting unusual wide disk coverage on the “Fella” tunes from companies other than Columbia, which snagged the cast album, is undetermined, but the Loesser offer is certainly regarded as slick public relations. Labor Referee Recommends Expulsion Of Read, Anti-PetriOo Coast Leader A recommendation to expel Cecils- F. Read, leader of the anti-James C. Petrillo faction of Coast Local 47, has been made by Arthur J. Gold¬ berg, labor attorney, y^ho recently ac'ed as referee in investigating the unseating of ^Tohn te Groen as 47’s prexy by Read and his follow¬ ers. * Goldberg’s findings, which may result in the exit of the Coast musicians from the American Fed¬ eration of Musicians, has been transmitted to AFM prexy Petrillo and his nine-man exec board for review and action. Goldberg held that Read and 10 other members of Local 47 “did conspire illegally” in “open revolt.” He recommended that Read, who “was and is the leader and guiding spirit” of the violations, should be expelled for one year.. At the end of that period, he would have the right of reinstatement “provided he has not violated any Federa¬ tion laws.” For two years after his reinstatement, he could not hold any office in Local 47. Goldberg recommended that 10 other supporters of Read in Local 47 should also be expelled but should be eligible for reinstate¬ ment one day after expulsion. They too would be unable to hold office after such reinstatement; ‘ ‘ These members are Uan'Rasey, - Hay To : land, Warren D, Baker,' John' Cly- man, William Atkinson, ‘ Jack' Du¬ mont, William Ulyate, Earl Evans, Marshall Cram and Martin Ber¬ man. The first six are 47 boar&4 members and the others are rank- (Continued on page 48) ‘Cat' as Pop Title of Tennessee Wil¬ liams’ legit click, “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof,” has been taken over by Abner Silver and Roy Alfred for a new pop tune. Song, which is published by TeePee Music, was cut by Dinah Washington for the Mercury label. Tune has nothing at all to do with the legiter but Teddy Powell, who heads up TeePee, hopes to get Metro, which is planning a film version of the show, interested. ASCAPV Small’ 500G Dividend A “small” dividend of around 1 $500,000 will be distributed by ASCAP this month from foreign performances of its catalog. Coin is from Canada and England. The big foreign melon is generally split in December when the rest of. the world, including England and Can¬ ada, make a remittance to ASCAP. ASCAP’s regular quarterly pay¬ offs from- domestic sources have been averaging around $4,500,000 recently.. Rose Vs. Bourne Again Delayed In Fed! Court The court action against Bourne Music for return of the copyright, “The. Old Gang of Mine,” was again- postponed in N. Y. Federal Court Monday (7). Move to delay stemmed from the estate of Mort Dixon, co-plaintiff in the suit along with Billy Rose and Ray Henderson, which requested that the trial await the naming of an executor. It’s expected that an execution to the Dixon estate will be designated within a couple of weeks and the trial may still come to bat before the end of this month. The case involves the important question for the music biz of whether the renewal assignment provision in the old publisher- writer contracts is valid. Rose, who is spearheading the suit, has contended that Bourne does not have the right to publish “The Old Gang of Mine” beyond the first copyright term which expired" in (Continued on page 48) VICTOR’S STET CAST ON'NEW FACES’ALBUM RCA Victor has wrapped up the Editing Is Loesser Of 2 Evils on 'Happy Felta’; 2 Dates for Long Score Frank Loesser’s “The Most Happy Fella” will be put into the groove without too much editing. Goddard Lieberson, Columbia Rec¬ ords exec veepee, who 1 will head up the original bast -sessions, - claims that most Of the earthy phrases in the Broadway timer are not part of- the score. He adds; ■ “And we never know what • won’t • work • on wax until we hear it in a recording studio.” Col has slotted two Sunday dz tor the grooving of • “Fella” * eause of the 'Size--of • the- sc< Loesser cleffed close to 35 so tor the musical. “Fella”-will Packaged on two 12-inch LPs j F irst session pt for Sunday (13): • Album ma oi s second original cast album 12H* se ® s °n- First was the b< selling “My Fair Lady.” original cast album rights to Leon¬ ard Sillman’s upcoming “itfew Faces of 1956.” Victor grooved Sillman’s last “New Faces of 1952.” Musical revue is scheduled to .preem on Broadway June 14. Songs for the score were contributed by Sandy Wilson, June Carroll, Ar¬ thur Siegel, Matt Dubey & Harold Karr, Murray Grand, Marshall Barer & Dean Fuller, Paul Nassau and John Rox. Also on Victor's original cast al¬ bum agenda this spring is “Shan¬ gri-La,” the Jerome Lawrence-Rob- ert E. Lee-Harry Warren musical currently trying out on the road. Victor’s only other original cast package this season has been Rod¬ gers. & Hammerstein’s “Pipe Dream.” Meyer Davis will preem his new song r “Divot Digger,” at the anni¬ versary ball climaxing annual Greenbrier Spring Festival at White Sulphur Springs. West -Va., Saturday (12). Davis will baton the orcb. ™ TflOTERS, By HERM SCHOENFELD America’s ‘musical educators see MOA Opens in Chi to “Beat ASCAP’ Theme on Jukebox Tap; Org Vows Battle Vs. Change in Copyrights the country on the threshold of a new Golden Age in musical ac¬ tivity due mainly to the tremen¬ dous spread of amateur instrumen¬ talists. According to the American Music Conference, an association of music educators; more than one person in every six in the U. S. regularly plays some kind of in¬ strument. The total comes to 27,- 650,000, an increase- of almost 100% over the 14,300,00 players 20 years ago. The dollar volume of the instru¬ ment business has been climbing in pace with the foregoing figures. In 1939, AMC estimates that the retail music business in instru¬ ments had a gross of $81,000,000, while in 1955 it was $380,000,000. Since 1952, the volume has in¬ creased by some $75,000,000. The piano leads all other instru¬ ments in popularity by far. A total of 20 , 000,000 persons play the pi¬ ano. The guitar ranks second with 4,000,000 players and violins are third with 3,000,000. As an inci¬ dental note, there are about 400,000 harmonica players in this country. There were 178,000 pianos sold last year, an increase of 28,000 over 1954. AMC estimates that 8,000,000 children are now playing instru¬ ments and are getting school in¬ struction. Over 500,000 music teachers are active in the field either on a fulltime or parttime basis. In the U. S. school system, there are now about 20,000 or¬ chestras and 40,000 bands, a total increase of over 75% since the end of the last war. Community orchestras are also springing up all over the country, according to AMC. Last year there were 1,100 amateur symphony orchs operating in various com¬ munities and professional group¬ ings, such as doctors’ and business¬ men symph outfits. One-third of all these community groups are in cities of under 50,000 population. The^ upbeat in classical music is also s'potlighted in the AMC run¬ down of music education. AMC es¬ timates that classical disks are now doing a retail gross of about $90,- 000,000. That’s about 30% of the estimated annual disk volume of $300,000,000 for this year. DuMont Dickers Par Music Cos. Part of an internal corporate re¬ organization, DuMont Broadcast-' ing Corp. is likely to buy out the Paramount-Famous music catalogs from Paramount Pictures for a re¬ ported $1,700,000. Bernard Qood- win, who is president of the Du¬ Mont company, and also heads the music operation for Paramount, would thus bring all his exec re¬ sponsibilities under one roof. Paramount Pictures, which owns 26% of DuMont’s stock, has a con¬ trolling interest in the telecasting company. Thus, the switch in ownership in the. music catalog would be, in effect, an intra-cor¬ porate bookkeeping operation. Teri Josefovits wound up a year’s run at New York’s Windsor Hotel last week to switch to the Quaker Ridge Inn, New RochelleT N.Y. ‘Roll’ Fade* in Cleve. According to a poll con¬ ducted by Cleveland's WDOK last week, rock 'n’ roll is on its way out. Station asked lis¬ teners to phone in reaction to the current teenage disk fad. Final tally was 1,968 for and 568 against. WDOK exec Norman'Wain stated that the survey results will be reflected in station’s future programming. MOA Claims No Link To Young’s Diskery Project Chicago, May 8 . Closing session here today (Tues.) heard Barney Young, prexy of National Juke Box Music Inc. and Ferris records, reveal details of a stock-record sale tie-in to obtain MOA support for the fledg¬ ling diskery. Accordirig to the plan, juke ops would receive one share of stock in Ferris for each five records bought; 2,990,000 shares at a par value of 10 c. per share will be offered. Single wax- ings would sell to ops at 55c. each. MOA prexy George Miller hast¬ ened to add that NJBM and Fer¬ ris are both owned solely by Young, not MOA, and that MOA had no desire to compete with the major record companies. Rep. George P. Miller, of Cali¬ fornia, touched on the opportun¬ ity MOA has to divorce itself from “shady elements on the line be^ tween good and evil.” He urged the industry to police itself, stat¬ ing: “You have got to do what the movies, baseball and the liquor industry have done.” COL DICKERING NEW PACT WITH DORIS DAY Columbia. Records is - wrapping up a new longterm deal with Doris Day. . Pact -is- expected, to be final¬ ized on the Coast this week. Thrush, who has been oh the Columbia' roster for the' past eight years, had been reported during the past couple - of months to be mulling the formation of her own indie diskery or to be ankling Col for a tieup with Randy Wood’s Dot label. The Day signing will mark Col’s second major renewal in the past week. Last week the diskery tapped Jo Stafford to another five- year term. Whitfield Planing In London, May 8 . •Singer David Whitfield flies to New York on Monday (14) for two Ed Sullivan CBS-TV shows, May 20 and 27. He will be accompanied by his musical director, Reg War- burton, as well as Sidney Grace and Pater Lavoie, of the Lew & Leslie Grade office.. . Whitfield’s current Decca wax¬ ing; “My September-Love;”-is sev¬ enth in the bestselling records list. * By GABE FAVOINO Chicago May 8 . Opening to the battlecry of “Beat ASCAP,” the sixth annual convention of the Music Operators of America got under way at the Morrison Hotel here yesterday (Mon.). The MOA’s determination to oppose, without compromise, any attempt to change existing copyright laws was constantly re¬ iterated by MOA prexy George A. Miller and MOA general counsel Sidney H. Levine in their reports to delegates. Almost equal in importance to the MOA stand on the continuing legislative fight was the organiza¬ tion’s growing concern with its public relations. Triggered by several unflattering national mag articles in the past year, the MOA scheduled two top public relations experts as featured convention speakers. Reviewing MOA’s activity in the six years since its birth, prexy Miller said “MOA has saved the operators millions of dollars in the last six years, if nothin? else.” (Continued on page 46) Vegas Veering To Name Bands? Las Vegas, May 8 . Possibility that the Las Vegas strip hotels may start booking name bands is seen here as an answer to the current hassle with American Federation of Musicians, which is demanding a 2Q% boost in scales for house bands. Hotel operators have been discussing a variety of solutions, including the possible elimination of shows for the summer. Name band bookings is regarded in some quarters as a solution to the problem since the bands themselves could serve as marquee lures. Feeliilg among the opera¬ tors is that the difference between existing scales^ and the fees rer quired for traveling bands repre¬ sents a better investment, in terms of a budget boost. Hill & Range Wins 106G Vs. British Publisher Of ‘Happy Wanderer’ The case of “The Happy Wand¬ erer” has finally been settled. Judgment for $105,980 in favor of Hill & Range vs. Bosworth Ltd., British publishing firm, was af¬ firmed in New York County Clerk’s office last week. The judgment originally had been handed down in New York Supreme Court Jan. 16, but the British firm won a motion in early February to stay the decision on the grounds that pubbery’s topper, A. F. Bosworth, could not attend the trial in New York because he was suffering from the after-ef¬ fects of a case of shingles. H&R had brought suit against Bosworth over “The Happy Wand¬ erer,” claiming it had negotiated with the British firm for the U.S. rights to the song. H&R claimed that after a firm deal was made, Bosworth turned the song over to U. S. music publisher Sam Fox. Ram-Delaney Split Waiting For Goddard Goddard. Lieberson, Columbia Records exec veepee, is consider¬ ing an original Broadway cast album of .the c.qr^eAt. iQgi.tpr,. .“Wait¬ ing for Godot.” Samuel Beckett’s whatsit is probably the most controversial play to tilt New York since T. S. Eliot's ’‘The -Cocktail- Party;” -which* was put into the groove by Decca. . “Godot” producer Michael Myerberg is currently huddling with Lieberson on the album project. Show’s cast includes Bert Lahr, E. G. Marshall, Kurt Kaszner, Alvin Epstein and. Luchino Solito De Solis. Buck Ram and Joe Delaney have split up their partnership in the Ram-Delaney management office. Talent properties will be divided between Ram, a Coast cleffer who wrote the hit, “The Great Pre¬ tender,” and Delaney, ex-Cadence Records sales manager who is managing several singers and combos.