Variety (December 1957)

58 MUSIC PfrRiE&r Wednesday, December 4, 1957 MirineapoIis,Dec. 3. 4 'N The Minnesota Broadcasters Assn, has joined in the fight to keep Broadcast Music Inc. alive and will use “every possible influ¬ ence” to thwart present efforts, in Congress to pronounce a death sen¬ tence for. the music licensing or¬ ganization. Action was decided upon at the MBA’s annual meeting here after hearing Glenn Dolberg of New York, BMI viecpresident, in charge of station relations; warn the broad¬ casters . that they’re f acing--the threat of finding themselves again at the “mercy” of the “rapacious” ; ASCAP r% at a heavy cost to their pocketbooks. The broadcasting industry, must, hestir itself vigorously and without delay to help thwart the present “plot,” allegedly conceived by ASCAP, to eliminate BMI from the music field, Dolberg declared. He reminded the MBA members hbw they had ;to pay “through the nose” when ASCAP had its music monop¬ oly back in the r 40s. MBA went on record to call upon all of the Minnesota Congressional delegation to support the “compe¬ titive principle” in the music li¬ censing field. Copies of the resolu¬ tion will go to all Minnesota Con¬ gressmen and its. two U.S. Senators, The resolution points out that music is a basic ingredient in the broadcasting industry’s format to¬ day and that the licensing of it was “prohibitively high” prior to BMI’s advent: Also cited is the fact that the number of authors, composers and writers has been greatly - larged with the advent of licensing ■* competition. In a Mood Groove Composer Harry Revel will be repped by five new mood music albums early next year. Revel was one of the pioneers in the mood music field, haying'-written ‘‘Music Gut of the Moon,” a Capitol LP click for Les Baxter IQ years ago. Since then. Revel has written music . for such mood sets as “Peace of; Mind” for Billy May at Capitol, “Perfume Set to Music” for Les Baxter at Capitol, "Music From Outer Space” for Stuart Phillips at MGM, and “And So to Sleep” for Hugo Peretti at Mer¬ cury. He’s also got a new batch of pop tunes, on which he col- labbed with Johnny Burke, being readied for the publisher rounds, ' On the Broadway tuner level, Revel has “Packaged in Paris,” which he wrote With George Marion Jr., and “Hell on Wheels,” with lyrics by Edward Eager and book by Ed Chodorov, In the works.. 2-Act With Cotton Chib Mills Music and the Cotton Club Revue are hack together again. Publishing firm, which had been closely associated with the w.k. Cotton Club shows of the 1930s, has latched on to the score for the Cotton Club ReVue—1958 Edition, opening in Miami Beach Dec. .20. Score for tlie new show was writ¬ ten by Benny Davis and Clay Bo¬ land, There are about eight tunes being readied for. a Mills push. Among them are “Sweeter Than Sweet” and “Never Had It So Good,” Si Rady’s U.S. Return Si Rady, RCA Victor staffer who had been liaison exec between the U, S. homeoffice and the Company’s % foreign affiliates, returned to New ‘ York, last week enroute to his new post with the label on the Coast. Rady has been named a musical director with the recently expand¬ ed Victor Coast setup now headed by Bob Yorker British Disk Best Sellers (Vogue-Coral) Remember You’re Mine Boone. (London) Wake Up Susie,. Everly Bros. (London) Bank* Frank Vaughan (Philips) Tammy .- ...... Reynolds (Vogue-Coral) Diana . ...Anka (Columbia) CAN'T AFFORD WORCESTER Philadelphia^ Recent (14th) Trip There Was Last Philadelphia, Dec. 3. Philadelphia Orchestra’s appear¬ ances at the Worcester (Mass.) Mu¬ sical Festival, made annually since 1944, have been terminated: Eu¬ gene Ormandy and orchestra made 14th and last visit Oct, 14. C, Wanton Balis, Jr., of the Or¬ chestra Association,. regretted that “increasing costs of operation and travel have made it impossible to continue.” HansHoehn has written a survey of the Reich Record litdntry, with accent on the German Disk Links , ' With Yank Labels another Editorial Feature intheupcomlng 52il Anniversary Number of P&RIETY 6 Name Pipers’ 1-Niters At San Antonio Auto Show San. Antonio, Dec, 3. Six name singers, Don Cherry, Bobby Breen, June Valli, Joni James, Steve Lawrence and Andy Williams, will take turns headlin¬ ing the. entertainment at-the 1958 San Antonio Auto Show, Jan. 17 to .22, at Bexar County Coliseum. Bob and Charles Coffen, of the. Double C Promotions, announced the array of “big record stars” who will rotate at the show sponsored by the San Antonio Auto Dealers Assn, for the benefit of Little League baseball In addition to aforementioned, there will be other continuing en¬ tertainment during the six days. The Four. Coins will appear nightly. They and three acts, the Maxwells, Phil; Laurence & Mitzi and the Great Donaldo, Will be backed by the Herman Waldman band. Inside Stuff—Music Rock ’n’ roll music, which may be slightly over the hill In popular¬ ity, but which probably will he around for some time yet* possesses one distinct plus—its heat has made dancing a popular pasthne with teenagers. So Woody Herman stated to Variety during Intermission of a concert last week at the Music Hall in Troy, N-Y. The veteran band¬ leader, who does not feature rock stuff, pointed out that “a • generation was sort of lost during'World War II, when kids had no-one to teach them dancing.” The tempo of rock roll, when it came along, was such that youngsters picked up dancing easily, he added. High popu¬ larity for dancing is important to the future of bands, Herman em¬ phasized. * Herman, Whose teenage daughter travelled with him for two sum¬ mers and who gradually switched from fondness for rock ’n’ roll to a lilting of other types of jazz (currently, the estoeric), believes that, with age,, comes musical selectivity arid discrimination. Ais they grow older, teenagers lose their love for “rock.” Taking a philosophical stance, Herman commented that “older peo¬ ple’s musical tastes are apt to be reactionary, from tl# viewpoint of youth. Remember how Older folk?-reacted against swing, back in the 1930s and early 1940s? What will be the next trend in popular music? Herman did not know. He thought that rested most “with publishers and with radio.” The latter is an influential medium in fostering musi¬ cal preferences, Herman declared. Pat Ballard, vet ASCAP songwriter and a member of the Song¬ writers Protective Assn., is taking exception to the SPA stand in Sup¬ port of the ASCAP songwriters vs. Broadcast Music Inc. In .a letter to SPA prexy Burton Lane,, who recently defended the SPA .position in a report to the membership, Ballard stated he was opposed- to the at¬ tempt to destroy BMI. “ASCAP,” he said, “was adjudged a monopoly and without BMI, it would again be a monopoly. Do you think it bet¬ ter for the Networks to abandon their holdings in BMI end sell them to hundreds of little guys who really might, if owning local stations, become shortsighted? The. Peatman performance records . v. show that ASCAP songs receive the preponderance of network usage.” Mills Music has taken over the catalog of Pigott & Co. Ltd.,.of Dub¬ lin, for the U.S. and South America. The Pigott catalog consists of ma¬ terial for piano, violin solos, ensembles, ballets and romantic and comic operas. The Songwriters Protective Assn. got its knuckles rapped last week by the N. Y. Herald Tribune for distributing without permission a reprint of an article by John Crosby which appeared in the Trib’s tv and radio mag in October. Trib veepee A. V. Miller, in a letter to (Continued on page 62) RETAIL DISK BEST SELLERS