[78-L] Venuti on Tops/Tempo Redux

[Bill McClung]

On the Billboard article--20,000 albums for $500,000 would be $25 each.  Was
the number actually 200,000?  That would make it an impressive promotion.

On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 6:19 AM, David Lewis <uncledavelewis at hotmail.com>wrote:

>
> 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
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