Variety (July 1958)

Wednesday, July 2, 1958 Inside Stuff-Music “Vurria,” a nostalgic and melancholy song by Rendine arid Pugltese, Von the Naples Song Festival of 1958, one of two top song events held each year in this country (other is at Sari Remo).. Two runners-up, both Voted equally into second place, were "Tuppe tuppe Marescia,” written t>y Anagni and Gigarite, and “Giulietta e Romeo,” by Mazzocco and Martucci. These two are in lighter vein. Hard-fought three-day song battle was fought out by best Italo lingers in Naples’ Meditarreaneo Theatre, with final evening beamed out to various European countries via the Euroyision television link. Twenty songs were chosen, for the finals from the over 300. submitted. As in the case of the San Remo event, the Naples projection almost automatically assures the top songs eventual success with the Italian public and,"even more, in the. hard-to^crack local publishing world. Tremendous Interests are at stake, with market being flooded with different disk versions of winning tunes, previously propped right after the;event. ^ Paul Anka, ABC-Paramount’s teenage crooner, Is on a hot summer schedule. Haying recently completed an 80-day tour with Irvin Feld’s "Biggest Stars of ’58” show, is; up for a six-day promotional tour of deejays and distributors beginning July 14. On July 20, he goes into Atlantic City’s Steel Pier for one week and then returns to the dee jay circuit through Aug. 8. For one week beginning'Aug. 11, Anka will be featured with Red Buttons & His Hollywood All-Stars at the Carter Barron Amphitheatre, Washington. Then comes a four-day stint (Aug, 29-Sept. 1) with Bob Hope in Indianapolis preparatory to a three- week tour of Japan, beginning Sept. 8. Anka currently is riding with his. pop single coupling of "Midnight” and "Verboten” and an. LP, simply titled "Paul Anka.” Tunesmith Robert Allen is hitting a hot disk stride currently. Allen’s tunes getting a wax workover are ‘‘Everybody Needs A Lover”, by Doris Day on Columbia; "If Dreams Gome True” by Pat Boone ion Dot; "The. Waiting Game” by Harry Belafonte on RCA Victor, and "Rockabye In Beardland” by Mitch Miller on Columbia. In addition. Shorty Rogers is prepping an album of Allen’s tunes for Victor, The American Guild of Musical Artists is slated to sponsor two more concerts as part of New York’s Summer Festival. Next concert; set for July 21, will be at the Wollman Memorial; second will take place Aug. 21 on the Central Park Mall. Initial concert in the series was held June .17 and included; Met baritone Theodor Uppman, Seymour Lipkin, pianist, and the AGMA chorale, Conducted by Ralph Hunter; John Brownlee, AGMA prexy, emceed. MUSIC 43 n« Uke A6*c Billing j Many a Slqi Between he and Disk; Morty Craft’s Plus-Minus Views New York. • Editor, Variety;: . An open letter to the executive director of the American Guild of Authors and Composers; I hate the new name. . If you spell It out, it’s too close to The American Society of; etc. . If you use the Initials,, it’s too; close to AGVA, Furthermore, “songwriter” was always plenty: descriptive for me: I always thought an author was a congressman who "authored” an anti-ASCAP bill. And I loved “S. P. A.” Have you taken, a walk on the Avenue of the Americas lately? Al Stillman. ABC-ParsMeet In the Mountains AB C-ParAmount is. heading to New York’s Catskill Mountains for its distributor ..meet this year. Label has. scheduled a three-day gathering ( July 16-18) at the Con¬ cord Hotel, Kiamesha Lake. . In addition to; Sam Clark, diSk- ery fprez, department heads sched : uled to address, the distrib group, are Harry Levine, veepee; Larry Newton, director of sales;. Dewey Bergman Jr., director of album sales arid merchandising; Don Costa, artists & reptolre chief; : Creed Taylor,v special a&r album production head, Sand -Natt Hale, national director of promotion and publicity. Melody Doesn’t Linger On As Cadence Buff Distrib; ‘Fouled-Up 1-Stop Town’ Cadence Records has shuffled out of Buffalo. Bob Kornheiser, diskery’s sales manager, has dropped Melody Distributors, out¬ fit which handled the Cadence line in the Buffaio. territory, because of the. "fouled-up” disk-distribution situation, there. The chaotic distribution condi¬ tion stems from the fact that there are now about 10 one-stops operat¬ ing ih Buffalo many of which are ; owned hy the local distributors, j Melody itself operates three one- ] stops. According to Kornheiser, re- j tailers in Rochester and Syracuse, j which are serviced by the Buffalo j distributors, are passing bj r the dis¬ trib outlets and buying directly, from the one-stoppers where they . can; get the disk? at least 5c cheaper. Distribution, Kornheiser says, is a. full-time job and a distrib should do more than* just take orders. He added that he expects a distributor to act as a. link between the diskery. ; arid the territory, tipping the hofneoffice ori local trends arid pro¬ motional angles. "This can’t be done/’ he pointed out, "with a one- stop Iriyolveraent.” BETAIL DISK BEST SELLERS “ JSAStlETY ' Survey of retail disk best ; sellers based on reports ob¬ tained from leading stores in 22 cities and showing com parative sales rating for this, and last week. National 1 Sating This Last wk. wk. V The' changing pattern of motion picture, exhibition and promotion is,having its effect on the disk in¬ dustry. That’s .the opinion of Morty Craft, artists Ac repertoire chief at MGM Records, Who adds that the growing ties between the pic companies and diskeries has developed advantages as well as some disadvantages for the record biz; On the plus side, he points to the spreading trend in pic exhibi¬ tion; to the hard-ticket policy. - This, he says, gives the picture a longer, run in key areas with a proportion¬ ate sales return coming in for the soundtrack albums. Motion pic¬ ture execs are closely watching the relationship of the hard-ticket policy on Metro’s "Gigi” to the sales of MGM’s soundtrack set. In the pic’s first two weeks at New York’s Royale Theatre, album sales in Gotham hit the 25,000 mark. . Craft forecasts that the package is bound to become one of the in¬ dustry’s top soundtrack sellers as the pic goes hard-ticket around the key cities of the country. . Another example of a hard-ticket Iongrun pic building soundtrack set sales is "Around the World in 80 Days.” It’s been a steady solid seller for. Decca since Its preem about two years ago and it’s re¬ ported that saies have passed the 750,000 mark. On. the negative side. Craft points out, is the fact that many film companies are using the pop singles market as. an advance pro¬ motion outlet for pix. Title songs . and/or ttines from the pix are get- | ting lost In the pop market be- ! cause they’re being ^released too far in advance of the pic. A re¬ lationship between the disk and the film has to be implanted on the .public; mind before the side can have any impact on the disk jockey, distributor or retail IeveL The pic companies that recently have set up their own disk sub- sids such as 20th-Fox. Columbia, Warner Bros, and United Artists, he says,., will have to decide whether they’re in the record busi¬ ness or the picture business. "A disk,” he concludes, "shouldn’t be dismissed as just another publicity gimmick for a film.” SHEB WOOLEY (MGM) Purple People Eater !.. COASTERS (Atco) Yakety Yak;; V ; ..v.y. . PEREZ PRADO (Victor) Patricia JIMMIE RODGERS (Roulette) Secretly ...:......;... EVERLY BROS. (Cadence) All I Have to Do Is Dream. ^ ; ELVIS PRESLEY (Victor) Hard Headed Woman., BOBBY FREEMAN (Josie) Do You Wanna Dance.... BOBBY DARIN (Atco) Splish Splash , ...... DEAN MARTIN (Capitol) Return To Me.... ...;. KARIN TWINS (Decca) When ....,,... ...... FOUR PREPS (Capitol) Big Man........ ...... JAN & ARNIE (Arwin) Jennie Lee.... v .. ...i. TONI ARDEN (Decca) Padre .. .................... FOUR LADS (Columbia) Enchanted Island... "“DAVID SEVILLE (Liberty) Witch Doctor...... 1. JODY REYNOLDS (Demon) Endless Sleep.... JOHNNY MATHIS (Columbia) A Certain Smile................ DANLEERS (Mercury). ; Orie Summer Night.. DUANE EDDY (Jamie) Rebel Rouser..............., ED TOWNSEND (Capitol) ; For Your Love;____......., RICKY NELSON (Imperial) I Poor Little Fool...... *.....,, RENATO CAROSONE (Capitol! Torero ....... . . ; ,,,,, PLAYMATES (Roulette). Don’t.Go Home..,,;...,,,,,, “ELVIS PRESLEY (Victor) Don’t Ask Me Why. f AMES BROS, (Victor) A Very Precious Love...; Hollywood, July l.\^ Imperial Records makes its ini¬ tial plunge into the stereo field in September with 12 disks. Accord- . ing to label prexy Lew Chudd, the 12 packages. Will retail for $4.95 and will be followed by a similar number of releases in November. If the stereo disk sales pay off, an -additional six albums will go into release during the Christmas holi¬ days. The stero LP’s which go into re¬ lease ftrst are; “Alfred Hitchcock’s Mtisic to be Murdered By,” which has already been released in regu¬ lar LP form; "Ralph Edwards’ This Is Your Life”; "They’re Playing Our Song’’ featuring Ralph Flana¬ gan’s orch and marking Imperial’s venture Into the big hand field; “Favorite American Marches,” comprised ' of Armed Service marches; “African Drum Beat”; plus Fats Domino, Slim Whitman, and Ernie Freeman albums, not yet cut; two jazz albums and two. mood music with instrumental hacking. ASCAP Firms Collect In Suit Vs. A.C. Station Another radio station, WLDB* in Atlantic City, has been found guilty of infringing on ASCAP works and has been ordered by the New Jersey Federal Court to pay damages of $250 each to four publishers, Suit has been orie of a recent series brought against radio outlets which have been play* ing works without a license from the American Society of Com¬ posers, Authors & Publishers. Plaintiffs in the suit against WLDB were Frank Loesser, Dubey & Karr, New York Music and May- fair Music. The station, owned by Leroy and Dorothy Bremmer, also had to pay court costs and attorneys’ fees.