[78-L] How did it work?

[Jeff Sultanof]

Having spoken to a bunch of old song pluggers and secretarial staff some
years ago when I was at Warner Bros. Music, I can tell you that the
publishers had a lot of clout with regard to record labels during that era.
It was their job to shop songs around to the labels and get them recorded.
There was payola in the form of concert tickets, openings to attractions
(like the opening of an artist at an important venue; during the big band
era it meant getting in to a Glenn Miller opening night at the Cafe Rouge),
hookers, cash and pretty much anything a label head or artist could desire.
We all know that some songs had the performers listed as a writer to cut
them in on royalties. So people like Leonard Joy, Eli Oberstein and John
Hammond had regular visits by the top pluggers, and these A&R people would
also suggest songs to artists. That is how Fats Waller came to record all
sorts of garbage that he turned into little gems. Pluggers were told that
certain songs were 'plug' songs and they had to concentrate on getting as
much airplay on them as possible, airplay in this case meaning live
performances.

One major exec who started out as a plugger named Herman Steiger told me
that he worked at Robbins Music during the day (this was in the
mid-twenties), then sang new songs at movie theatres inbetween movies while
slides were projected on the movie screen with the lyrics. He also would
show up at restaurants that had live music to sing the new songs that
Robbins was plugging. He did this all over Manhattan and the five boroughs.
Eventually he owned Robbins and two other publishers, a concern called The
Big Three.

In some cases, publishers paid for the recording sessions themselves. Irving
Mills paid for the 1934 Goodman sessions for Columbia which featured all
Mills songs. I believe he also paid for some Ellington and Benny Carter
sessions. Ellington of course stayed under his management until 1940, Carter
split from Mills quickly.

Publishers cared about sheet music sales, radio broadcasts and usages in
movies (stock arrangements were free to professionals so that songs could be
heard in as many places as possible, and stock arrangers were under contract
to grind them out). Records were not as important as they would be in the
fifties. Sheet music was arranged in a comfortable key for most male
performers (I've heard from many female pianists/singers who worked in piano
bars that sheet music keys during that era were not comfortable for them).
Sheets had generic arrangements, not transcriptions from the 'hit' versions
which has been the format for sheet music since the seventies. Publishers
were delighted when there were two or more bands that created some noise on
a given song. Composers such as Gershwin and Porter had approval of the
arrangements for sheets, and made changes freely if they didn't like what
the arranger did. I've seen proofs in Gershwin's hand from the early 30s.

Pluggers could really harass artists who were very popular; Artie Shaw
frequently complained that they wouldn't let him alone. They knew that the
really big artists could put over some of the duds that were published (and
let's remember that many songwriters had contracts with publishers that had
to be recouped). Of course you could not tell a Paul Whiteman or a Glenn
Miller what to record if they didn't want to play a certain song, so
pluggers could only go so far, but when it came to these artists, the labels
and publishers tended to offer them the very best songs published. In fact,
Whiteman left Victor when he discovered that Nat Shilkret was getting first
pick of the best songs by 1926-7. The up-and-coming bands needing that first
big hit were the ones who were often the most swayed by pluggers, as they
often did not get the best songs to consider. But who knew which songs would
become hits? Even some fine Irving Berlin songs came and went quickly.

Pluggers were familiar with everyone backstage at major movie theatres so
they could show up at an artist's dressing room at any time. Lots of money
changed hands.

I heard many, many stories about the music business from that era from
wonderful people who are now long dead. I am thinking of them now and the
times they discussed with me. Helen Schoen who worked for Sam Sax at the
Vitaphone Studios was still with Warners in 1979 and spent many hours
telling me about the world she was part of. So if anything has anything
specific they want to know about, maybe I can help.

Jeff Sultanof

On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 4:51 PM, simmonssomer <simmonssomer at comcast.net>wrote:

> The more ARC, Gennets, Orioles etc. I listen to, the more I wonder how
> these
> tunes (if you can call some of them that) came to be recorded.
> In other words, how did the recording industry function?
> Did the publishers' salesmen call on record company execs and / ororchestra
> leaders demonstrating their latest "hits?"
> Was there payola?
> What was the relationship between the leaders and the publishing companies?
> Did some of the leaders , depending on their popularity, make any
> decisions.
> Did Columbia and Victor tell Whiteman or did he tell them?
> Were there A & R suits?
> I can guess at some of these answers but would like to know from somebody
> who actually knows.
>
> Al S.
>
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