Variety (February 1957)

Vediteiday^ Febmayy 27, 1957 _ ^ MUSIC 43 DJ’S DON’T BUY PAYOLA BLAST 4' BMFs ISweet Seventeen’ Year B):oadcast . Music Inc. is high in the pop saddle these days, cUckmg with the greatest majority of hits in its 17-year history. Of the top 10 tunes, at least seven have been BMI-licensed for the past couple of months while in some weeks the percentage goes up to 80%. On the “Hit Parade” show, six out of seven have been BMI for the past few weeks with even some of the oldies, featured as “extras” on th^* video series, occasionally being BMI numbers as well. While BMI had similar dominance of the top 10 a few years ago when coimtry & western music was in vogue, currently the BMI tunes have saturated the business from top to bottom. Of the top 45 disks in last week’s Vabiety’s “Top Record Talent & Tunes’* chart, BMI controlled 34 with 11 being licensed through ASCAP. Always potent in the rock ’n’ roll idiom, BMI is now also riding with the new calypso cycle, licensing such hits as “The Banana Boat Song,” and “Marianne.” BMl’s dominance is shaping up as new talking point for the litigating ASCAP songsmiths who are suing both BMI and the broadcasters, for alleged conspiracy to block non-BMI songs from wide exposure. One spokesman for the ASCAP pfaintiffs stated that the “current figures only prove our contention that BMI can turn lis off or on at will. At t^ie present time, they have chosen to turn us off.” . Prep’ Labd ; Pwsonnel From Parent Capitol Records will kick off a subsidiary label around April 1. It will be known as Prep Records. The launching of Prep completes the list of majors now operating with offspring companies^, RCA Victor has Vik, Columbia has Epic and Decca has Coral. Capitol will operate Prep in a similar manner to that of the other majors, that is, the line Will function completely independent of its parent company. Irv Jerome has been shifted over from Cap to take over as v.p. na¬ tional sales manager. He’s cur¬ rently on the Coast huddling with Cap proxy Glenn E. Wallichs on blueprints for the new line. Jerome, who’s been with the Cap org for 10 years and district sales man¬ ager for the past several years, will line up indie distributors around the country to handle Prep. Cap distribs already have been in¬ formed that the Prep action will in no way conflict with the Capitol operation. Wallichs will double as prexy of the wholly owned subsid. Other officers are Leo Harmon, secretary; Harry Wood, treasurer, and James R. Gordon, administrative man¬ ager. Mamie VAn Doren is Prep’s first pactee. She’s the wife of bandleader Ray Anthony who rec¬ ords for Capitol. Manny Kellem also will switch from the parent company to head (Continued on page 50) S. F. Opera House Board Gets Hep to Jazz, Okays ‘Birdland Stars’ Concert San Francisco, Feb. 26. Trustees of the Frisco Opera House, who turned down a jazz concert last December, have re¬ considered and have given “The Birdland Stars of 1957” an April 28 date. The trustees of the public build¬ ing voted 9-1 to okay promoter. A1 Wilde’s second application after the ■ board’s president, Prentis Cobb Hale Jr., told them he had attended a' concert of the Birdland troupe in Carnegie Hall, N.Y., several weeks ago and had been impressed by the caliber of the performance. Leading performers of the Birdland group are Count Basie, Sarah Vaughan and Billy Eckstine. The policy reversal followed a Frisco furor occasioned by the denial of the adjacent Veterans Auditorium to Dizzy Gillespie’s band last month. At that time, it was revealed the “Birdland” appli¬ cation had been rejected because a 1948 “Jazz at the Philharmonic” concert had resulted' in $2,500 worth of damages to Opera House fixtures. But Hale, at the trustees’ latest meeting, “made quite an eloquent plea,” said one trustee. The sole holdout was trustee Ralph Stern, who maintained the Opera House should be reserved exclusively for opera, symphony and classical music concerts. ^Adult’ Hit Parade Programmers have been urging a somewhat imprac¬ tical thing, on Variety, i.e., to break down, the pop hits Into an “Adult” Hit Parade, pointing to “True Love,” “Anastasia” and the like show¬ ing up poorly iii comparison to the rock ’n’ roll and kindred pops. It’s not feasible because the current calypso vogue, for in¬ stance, Has as much “adult” appeal fBelafonte et aD as with the kids. Nonetheless, the tv-radio programmers? point is well taken anent the fact, that, of late, the sequenc¬ ing of the pop crop still puts strong accent on the r&b stuff. Dismiss Levitz Breach“of-Pact Suit Vs. Big 3 A breach-of-contract suit brought by Stephen J. (Steve) Levitz, for¬ mer Big Three Music exec, against Robbins Music and Lo6w’s Inc., was dismissed In N. Y. Supreme Court last week by JusticevFelix C. Benvenga. Judge handed down his decision after Levitz made an ap¬ plication to examine Charles C. Moskowitz, Loew’s v.p. and the Big Three’s prexy, and Maurice (Mickey) Scopp, the Big Three’s v.p. and general manager; The de¬ fendants countered with a motion to dismiss which was granted by the court. Julian T. Abeles (& Bernstein), repping the Big Three, argued for all the defendants, al¬ though Loew’s and Moskowitz, who was also named as defendant, was repped by Benjamin Melniker and Joseph A. Macchia of the Loew’s staff. The complaint alleged that Lev¬ itz, who was with Robbins for 33 years, had been induced to sell his 23 shares of stock in the company to the music firm on the promise that he would be continued in the firm’s employ at the same salary for as long as he was able to work. Levitz sold his stock to Robbins (Continued on page 50) Kay Armen, Hazel Scott Inked to Decca Roster Kay Armen has joined Decca’s roster of vocalists. Miss Armen has cut for several companies over the past few years and had the first ve’'sion of the hit of several years back, “Come On-A My House,” written by William Saroyan and Ross Bagdasarian. Decca also has signed Hazel Scott to do a series of piano albums. COAST REACTS TO Harry Fox’s Posh for Pubbery Credits KNICHT'SKHS (bi Albums, No. IMecbankal Earner . ; With royalties from albums now Hollywood, Feb. 26. Vick Knight, prexy-owner of Key Records, small indie-^Iabel, told the Southern California Broadcasters Asisn. last week that money, must bo paid to some deejays to get them to play certain records. An¬ swers came pronto from several jockeys. Since only one record in 86, ac¬ cording to available figures, be¬ comes a hit, the cost of the failures must be spread out amongst all a label’s product, Knight explained. He warned the broadcasters that they must eventually bear some of this promotional cost, now esti¬ mated at an average of $3 per copy to deejays. Under these circumstances, the number of small labels which fold averages six a month, even count¬ ing the constant newcomers t6 the field, Knight warned. Some labels remain in the field because of pres¬ tige factors, with the owners writ¬ absorbing the costs in other ways. However, the plight of the indie recorder In the game for a profit is becoming Increasingly desperate, he warned. Returning to his discussion of payola, the ex-radio producer-di¬ rector and ad-publicity man ob1 served that it is heaviest in the • (Continued on page 50) j Gene Buck Dead At 71; ASCAFs Big Era Prexy Gene Buck, veteran lyricist and showman who served as president of the American Society of Com¬ posers, Authors & Publishers for 17 years starting in 1924, died in North Shore Hospital in Manhasset, L.I., Sunday (24) after an emer¬ gency operation. He was 71. A successful wordsmith of over 500 songs, Buck was best known for his battles in behalf of ASCAP during its formative years when the Society was trying to imple¬ ment the idea that songwriters should be paid for use of their works. A charter member of ASCAP, having joined in 1914, he became ASCAP’s president in 1924 and left that post after the Society settled its bitter dispute with the broadcast industry in 1941, For the first few years while ASCAP prexy. Buck received no pay and once asked to be relieved of his duties. ASCAP’s board, however, voted to give him a sub¬ stantial salary and Buck then con¬ centrated most of his activities on (Continued on page 48) In line with its 10th anniversary promotion, MGM Records is sched¬ uling 260 albums in the pop, jazz and classical field for the re¬ mainder of 1957. To get the big album program rolling the diskery is instituting its “fourth Baker’s Dozen” campaign which gives dealers a cuffo album for every 12 purchased. Albums in the new drive include “Sing a Song of Paris” by the Ray Charles Singers; David Rose & His Orch in “Hi Fiddles”; Sam (The Man) Tay¬ lor’s “Music for Melancholy Babies”; “Themes From Italian Films” by Robert Asley’s Orch; “Red Sails in the Sunset” by .Dick Hyman; “More Lush Themes From Motion Pictures,” by the LeRoy Holmes orch; “Dim Lights and Blue Musjc” by the Cyril Stapleton orch; “Honky Tonk” by tlie late RCA's Paderewski Pash RCA Victor’s romance with young longhair pianists con¬ tinued to bloom last week with the pacting of Philippe Entremont. This followed the recent signing of 21-year old Polish pianist Adrej Czajkowski and John Browning, young Ameri¬ can keyboarder who has been concertizing' in Europe. According to Alan Kayes, manager of Victor’s Red Seal division, Entremont, a 22-yearold Frenchman, will be re¬ leased on orchestral and solo platters recorded both in the U.S, and France. He’s due here early in November for a series ^ of concert appearances with U.S. symphs. A tour of South America also is on his schedule for May-June, 1958. No Disk Jockey Left Unturned In Tair Lady Tour Records will be the key media in the exploitation of the tour of the “My Fair Lady” national com¬ pany. The groundwork for the disk-' tuner tie-in already has been laid with such labels as Columbia, RCA Victor, ABC-Paramount and Con¬ temporary pitching in on the pro¬ motion. Chappell, which publishes the Alan Jay Lerner-Frederick Loewe score, also is getting into the act by distributing cuffo ducats to disk jockeys when the tuner hits their town. Harry Sulkin, Chappell’s sales manager, is working out ties with music dealers to handle dis¬ play material on the musical when it comes into their territory. Coward-McCann, publisher of the book version of “My Fair Lady,” is working out similar promotion ties with book dealers. The record distributors in cities (Continued on page 50) Dean Jones’ Triptych Dean Jones is being prepped for a three-way spread on di.sks, pix and. tv. Actor-crooner, who’s been inked to an MGM disk deal and as a Metro contract player, has been set for eight guest appear¬ ances on NBC-TV in 1957. Six of them will be on Steve Allen’s Sun¬ day stanza, with the first one pen¬ cilled in for March 24. His first MGM platter, “His Great Great Reward” and “'The Song of the Ox Driver,” hit the market last week. Metro currently is screening several musical prop-' erties for him. Hank .Williams; “Zing! Went the Strings of My Harp” by Robert Maxwell; “Music foi; a Magic Night” .by Milano and his orch; “Latin America After Dark” by Ambrose’s orch, and “Hold Me” by Johnny Gregory’s crew. The program, which includes LPs as well as EPs, will run through March 28. The diskery also is offering' its distributors special albums at $1 each for disk jockey exploitation. The deejay packages will be marked “P’or promotional use only — not for sale.” The label also is picking up strong sales activity on its current pop single, releases. Among them are David Rose’s “Calypso Mel¬ ody,” -Robert Maxwell’s “Song of the Nairobi Trio,” Connie Francis’ “No Other One” and Joni James’ “Only Trust Your Heart,” accounting for over 50% of the mechanical coin earned by publish . ers, a drive is being initiated by Harry Fox, publishers’ agent and trustee, for full publisher credits to be included on all packaged merchandise using copyrighted works. At the present time, only an occasional album includes pub¬ lisher credits either on the disk it¬ self or In the jacket liner notes. 1 In . many cases, Fox’s office has discovered, spinning of the album by the smaller stations is limited by the lack of clearance informa¬ tion. Thus, the publishers and the writers lose possible perfor¬ mance coin from the omission of such vital data as the names of the cleffer, the publisher and perform¬ ing rights society (ASCAP, BMI or Sesac). To smooth the way for the diskers. Fox’s office is setting up an in¬ formation service which will sup¬ ply all the relevant data to the platter companies. Fox’s office will give the copyright data on tunes used in albums even in cases where Fox does not represent the publisher involved. Royalties from albums are now almost universally set . at 2c per band. Under the publishers’ rate schedule, albums priced above $3 pay the full statutory rate, while most of those below $3 pay l^^c. Some LPs priced at $1.49 and be¬ low pay at the rate of IV^c, which is the rock-bottom figure. If Dancing Is Dead, BG Doesn’t Know It; Maestro Pnlls Record 8G in Prov. Providence, Feb. 26. Meyer Stanzler, operator of Rhodes on the Pawtuxet here, re¬ ported Benny Goodman broke all band records for the spot Satur¬ day (23) with over 4,000 at $2 per. Contrary to Stanzler’s belief be¬ fore the appearance, Goodman drew 65% teeners. Only bigger dates at the dancery were singers, McGuire Sisters and Frankie Laine, and spot has played Guy Lombardo, Les Brown, Ralph Flanagan and other top bands. “The popular belief among ball¬ room owners is that the dance is gone,” said -Stanzler. “It is gone if we don’t play bands who learn from Goodman, who works hard to keep the customers pleased, and keeps, them dancing. If the young¬ er bandleaders would observe the master, we would have a healthier business.” In addition to playing dance music from 8:30 to 12, Goodman followed with a 70-minute jazz concert. Stanzler backed up the BG one-nighter with heavy public¬ ity, exploitation and advertising, contacting over 100 disk jocks within a 50-mile radius of the ball¬ room and inviting them to come as guests. He also played up the angle of Goodman’s return from a successful trip through Asia. Orch opened at N. Y.’s Waldorf-Astoria I Monday (25). Pasternak on a Pullman For ‘10,000 Bedrooms’ Pic Film producer Joe Rasternak is taking the disk route to plug his upcoming Metro pic, “10,000 Bed¬ rooms,” He left the Coast Sun¬ day (24) to visit deejays in 15 cities. The disk he’s using to promote the pic is Joni James’ “Only Trust Your Heart” on the MGM label. Tune is by Nicholas Brodszky and Sammy Cahn. AI Stillman and Robert Allen are wearing cufflinks which are miniature gold disks of Columbia’s “Moments to Remember” and„ “No, Not Much.” They’re gifts from the 4 Lads who clicked with both j 1.000,000-copy sellers of songs writI ten by them. o MGM in Threefold 2Gi)-Set Pace By Year’s End to Mark 10th Anni