Variety (February 1958)

55 Wednesday, February 12, 1958 WBzn 55T MUSIC BRITAIN’S BULLISH DISK BIZ Folowing through on the phenomenal click of its longhair disk via its tieup with the Book-of-the-Month, Victor is expanding Its club operations into the pop held next month. Also linked with the BOM, the new operation will be called the RCA Victor Popular Album.. Club (PAC). The longhair club, called the RCA Victor Society of Great Music, which was launched a month ago, has already become the largest classical club in the field and the outlook is for 500,000 members within the year. The new club. Which Victor v.p. and general manager George R. Marek announced to the dealers last week, will feature popular ; showtune and jazz LP’s at regular list prices. The premium album to launch the club is now being set. In the longhair; op¬ eration, Victor kicked off the club with a package Of nine Beetho¬ ven symphonies under Arturo Toscanini’s baton at a $3.98 price, bargain which is credited with the fast public response to the BOM advertising Campaign in the consumer press and via broad¬ cast spots. As with the classical club, the dealers are being cut in on the pop club operation by getting a 20% commission on all sales to. members which they sign up. All space advertisements for the club will also permit prospective members to credit : their regu¬ lar dealers, who by this route Will also get the 20% commission. As another angle designed to please dealers, Victor will be sending to all club members a magazine describing the club selections, in addition to other Victor pop releases which will be available only through disk stores. Lew Brown, 64, of Tin Pan'Golden Era/ By ABEL GREEN In an era of one-song writers and freak one-record upstart hits; the Lew Brown traction stands out even more significantly and 'his death, at 64, of ;a heart attack last Wednesday (5), points up the Unique stature of the prolific song- smith. A legend within his own time, he was the professional song¬ writer^ songwriter. He typified the tradition of the music business in all its multiple facets and re¬ flected a glorious period when the Golden Twenties was truly the golden era of Tin Pan Alley. - Brown gave away more free ma¬ terial as a "special material” writer, just to cement a plug* or for friendship’s sake, than maiiy a present-day gagwriter grinds out for . fancy fees. Brown was one of the great MD.s—musical doc¬ tors—rof the music business. He knew the public taste as few did: and was thus'able to revise and; polish novelty tunes like “Last Night on the Back Porch (I Loved Her Best of All)” and "The Beer Barrel Polka,” and “Yes, We Have No Bananas,” the. works of other cleffers. He was one of the genre of the yesteryear music men like Edgar Leslie, Pete Wendling, Abel Baer, Wolfie Gilbert, Sam M. Lewis, Joe Young, Fred Ahlert, J. Russel Rob¬ inson, Benny Davis et al. who, "to land a top act,” knew what else to do to enhance that plug, and lock it in. This called for spen- taneous resourcefulness and a pro^ lific flair which ofttimes eclipsed the contribution of the headliner’s own act scripter. His training dated back to 1916 when he sold parodies at $2 to singing waiters at Coney Island’s College Inn. He Was a lifeguard in Rockaway Beach and whiled his (Continued on page 61) Green’s G&S for GreenhiU, New RCA-Linked Diskery Martyn Green w and Hillard El¬ kins, his personal manager, have set up Greenhill Records, a disk producing firm which will release through RCA, Victor. New com¬ pany has wrapped up a deal with Victor whereby Green will pro¬ duce, direct and star in three Gil¬ bert & Sullivan albums. Green leaves for England Feb. 24 where he’ll begin work on the packages. County Atty. Probing Arthur Murray Studio After 75G Mpls. Suit Minneapolis, Feb. 11. County Attorney George M. Scott’s recently created business fraud department is investigating the local Arthur ’ Murray Dance Studio to determine “whether or not any laws have been broken,” Investigation follows filing of a $75,000 lawsuit and alleged "numer¬ ous complaints” received by the couhty attorney against the studio. Eugene L. Kellogg, St. Paul, the suit’s plaintiff,.... who is palsied, alleges undue influence was ex¬ erted by the St. Paul Arthur Mur¬ ray Studio to Induce him to purr (Continued on page 56) Lou Levy to Coast Leeds music prexy Lou Levy headed for the Coast last week to o.o. some new material and con¬ tact disk artists living in Holly¬ wood. . Levy, who gave up his Coast of¬ fice last jrear, has been making the cross-country trips now on a regular basis. Seattle’s 2-in-l Local Seattle, Feb. 11.. All Seattle union musicians are now in Musicians Local 76, with all members of Local 493 trans¬ ferred, Alvin Schardt, 76 prexy, announced. Amalgamation marks end of move begun years ago to set up one local here. Local 493 for the last 35 years represented most of area’s Negro musicians. By BART BARNETT London, Feb. 4. With a new all-time high in disk sales and production notched for 1957, the British record industry is gearing itself for an even, great¬ er peak in 1958. The only for- seeable snag which could stop this from coming about is a drastic change in the country’s economic outlook. Spokesmen for the in¬ dustry maintain that this could be the only barrier, but add, how-: ever, that the Tate' of expansion will be much slower this year than it has been in the past. Last year’s production figures, at an estimated 78,000,000, were 12,- 000,000 greater than the previous year. Main reason for the fast growth of disk favor, according to company execs, is the falling off in popularity of ty, radio and motion pictures with the younger element of the population, the backbone of the platter buying public. w This is reflected in the fact that^among bestsellers of the past year were Elvis Presley, Harry Beljafonte, Paul Anka, and the Everly Bros. Sales of record players and other sound reproducing equipment are on the way. up, and folk have now. got the disk buying habit—so much So, that the diskeries are con¬ vinced that a decline in the pop¬ ularity of rock ’n’ roll and other forms Of popular beat music would not greatly dent the current disk buying kick. It’s admitted that this music has played the major role in putting the British industry in the high spots, but now that platter purchasing is a regular part of the normal weekly ex¬ penditure for. a large number of people, ho matter what becomes the vogue in music. During 1957, the estimated re¬ tail revenue, including sales tax, was around $72,500,000 compared with just over $50,000,000 the year (Continued on page 60) Brubeck SRO in London London, Feb. 11. . The SRO signs. were up within two days, of the boxoffice opening for the first British concerts by the Dave Brubeck Quartet at the Royal Festival Hall. More than 6,000 tickets were sold for the first two stints last Saturday (8). The Brubeck outfit, presented in Britain by the National Jazz Feder¬ ation, is skedded to play 22 con¬ cert dates during its 16-day stay, taking in major, cities and. towns. : Nabbing Pair for Phony Pressings Points on Piracy The Chicago action on piracy (see separate story) . represents a continuing drive by both the disk industry and the music publishers against the practice. Straight coun¬ terfeiting of disks represents a problem in detection since the operators are fly-by-night, and - move into new territory v with new disks as soon as possible. Hits oh the indie labels are particularly susceptible, to piracy since they don’t have the resources to protect their product and the speed of dis¬ tribution to cash in fully on a hit disk. On a hiflike the "Flyinig Saucer” disk of a cou¬ ple of years ago, it’s believed the. bootleggers made almost' as much money as the orig¬ inal label. Recently, the music biz hand versus the. pirates was strengthened by a U. S.- Cir¬ cuit Court of Appeals decision Which held that distributors and dealers, along with the pirates themselves, are liable for the payment of royalties on unlicensed material. That, it’s believed* will make the dealers more wary in buying hit . disks at cut-rate prices from the shady operators. peb. Is Garner’s Month In Col’s Package Pash; Sinatra, Doris Day Sets Columbia Records is spotlight¬ ing Erroll Garner for its February package, push. Label is singling out Garner’s new release, “Soliloquy, 1 in a drive that will include his catalog Of nine Columbia sets. During. 1957, Garner’s. "Concert By The Sea” and "Other Voices' were top sellers for the label and the diskery’s sales execs feel that he’s ripe for an all-out push which will cover the pop and jazz fields. Col’s February release package includes 30 albums in the pop and Masterworks lines. Highlighting the package are two double-pocket LP packages by Doris Day and Frank Sinatra to be priced at $7.98. Miss Day’s set, “Hooray For Hollywood,” is in the pic-tune groove; while Sinatra’s package, ‘‘The Frank Sinatra Story,!* covers his more than 10 years as a Columbia artist. ' Chicago, Feb. 11. The Chicago state attorney’s of¬ fice cracked down on a ring of disk pirates over last weekend and ar¬ rested one man, George HHger, on charges of counterfeiting a trade¬ mark and another, Charles Eng¬ lish, on charges of possessing rec¬ ords bearing fake trademarked la¬ bels. Under Illinois law, disk piracy is a criminal offense, un¬ like New York, where it only Con¬ stitutes grounds for civil action. Among toe seized merchandise were disks bearing. Brims wick. Em¬ ber, Atlantic and Swan labels. Disks cost toe bootleggers about 15c apiece and were sold to dis- triubtors and retailers at whatever the traffic would bear. The disks were pressed at a Cincinnati plant While many similar actions against disk pirates were initiated via the New York office of Harry Fox, publishers’ agent and trus¬ tee who collects mechanical roy¬ alties, toe Chicago crackdown stemmed from disk sources here. It’s understood the Fox office has offered to cooperate with the police iii the Current*action.. 'Planted* in Cincy Cincinnati, Feb. 11. Pirated disks and labels seized here at the Rite Record Co., con¬ tract manufacturer for the Lomar Distributing Co., Chicago, include “La Dee Da,” by Billy Ford.& His Thunderbirds, and "Bad Motor¬ cycle,” on Cameo, and “I Am Lone¬ ly” and “Get a Job,” by the Silhou¬ ettes on Ember. Cincy detectives put toe snatch on 1,000 records and 5,000 labels Friday (7); They acted after Cook County (Chi) authorities arrested Charles English, owner of the La¬ mar Co., and George Hilger, prin¬ ter.; Carl Burkhardt, owner, of the Cincy plant, said he contracted to do work for Hilger, who used Mil¬ ler as his business name, and told police he provided merely the ma¬ chinery and labor. Local police followed instruc¬ tions of Chicago authorities who estimated that Rite shipped 125,- 000 platters to Hilger since Dec. 1. No charge was filed against Burkhardt. Cover for Sportsmen Hollywood, Feb. 11. Tops Records* Coast indie label that is climbing to a major level via distribution in markets and stores on a low-priced purchase scale, has garnered two more artists to disk pacts. Jerry Gray orch, previously With Liberty Records, and the Sports¬ men, Jack Benny’s singing group, have been set to cut their initial waxings for label next month. Un¬ usual aspect of toe Sportsmen’s deal is that Benny has agreed to grace the album cover on their LP, "although he will not partici¬ pate in toe recordings. Westminster Bucks-Up Longhair Disks to $4.98 Westminster Records is the lat¬ est to hike its classical prices, go¬ ing from $3.98 to $4.98 this month.. A; flock of similar price in¬ creases by other labels followed in the wake of RCA Victor’s an¬ nouncement late last year that it was planning to raise its tabs ef¬ fective Feb. 1. 2-Year Decca-IBEW Pact Hollywod, Feb. 11. A new two-year contract has been signed between Int’l Brother¬ hood of Electrical Workers and the Hollywood branch of. Decca Records. Representing diskery in the con¬ fabs was Samuel Yaman, treasurer and chief legal counselor of tot company.