[78-L] Venuti on Tops/Tempo Redux

[David Lewis]

In the process of following the thread of the material you all kindly submitted yesterday, I've found a couple of interesting discographical nuggets:

The Pan American Material with singer John Laurenz all eventually found its way onto Tops in the early LP era. In fact Tops L 101 -- their first 10" LP -- was "Six All-Time Hits" by Laurenz and Venuti. There is a second LP, and it appears only two of these titles appear in Garrod's disco:

L 923 - Twilight on the Trail - John Laurenz with Joe Venuti Orchestra [195?] Sweetheart
Of The Rio Grande/Boots And Saddle/Twilight On The Trail//Silver On The Sage/South Of The
Border/My Ol' Ten Gallon Hat


as per http://www.bsnpubs.com/pri/tops10.html

Also ran into a Billboard article from 4-28-1951 that explains the existence of those 5-album Tempo sets, entitled "Promotion at Rapid Tempo: Philco Places 500G Order As Freebies to Distribs." In a nutshell, Philco purchased 20,000 albums at a cost of 500 grand to mass produce these sets as promos for dealers of their radio-phono and radio-phono-TV sets. The transaction is called "one of the largest single disk purchases ever made," and indeed, may have been the largest promo order of all time. The Tempo records were chosen for their high frequency response and the quality of the vinyl, according to the piece in Billboard.

Uncle Dave Lewis
uncledavelewis at hotmail.com