Hit Songs That Should Never Be Played On Radio Today

[michael hagerty]

I've believed for some time there was a "sea change" in the music biz much the same as in the movie industry in the 70's. Please hear me out. Until the mid-70's, a couple hundred prints of a feature movie was a typical laboratory run, and the film would make its way across the country gradually, opening in the largest cities first then working its way thru the smaller cities, second-run houses, drive-ins, etc. JAWS changed all that; Universal made something like 1500 prints and opened it "everywhere" at once. This was the beginning of the summer (or holiday or whenever) "blockbuster," and it largely put an end to the little "program" pictures small-town theatres in particular depended on.

Comparing that to the record business; I'll use Ray Conniff as an example. Columbia knew they could sell on average X number of copies of a Conniff album, so if they could produce one for less than Y number of dollars, they would make a modest-but-reliable profit. Then came the go-go-go multi-platinum-shipment era, and every label was looking for "the next" Fleetwood Mac or Bruce Springsteen or Michael Jackson or whoever. They wanted, then NEEDED blockbusters; and "product" albums (and the artists who made them) were pushed aside. Those who still wanted albums by "product" artists couldn't get them as the labels were no longer interested in making them, so they gradually lost interest; sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

(I could be wrong though, y'know...)

Jeff: It's a logical theory, but not totally accurate. The labels knew not every record would sell huge. Ray Conniff, Percy Faith and Andre Kostelanetz had sort of parallel careers with Columbia...all starting in the late 40s to mid 50s and running until the middle 70s. Their stuff sold best when they were doing original(ish) material and standards in the early days.

By the mid-60s, they had come down to formula...three or four albums apiece per year with a pretty girl on the cover and 12 cover versions of contemporary pop songs. And those sold decently to audiences over 50 who couldn't stomach the originals. But the sales figures went down with every one. The new crop of grownups preferred the originals. And even some older listeners realized that the whole thing was way out of touch. For example, a song of loss and impending suicide sung as though it was a toothpaste jingle:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvYgkDVu3gM


Ultimately, for Ray, Percy and Andre (and for that matter, Patti Page, Andy Williams, Peter Nero and a dozen or so other Columbia mainstays), it wasn't that they had to sell a million, it was that they weren't selling 30,000 copies...and it made better business sense to roll the dice on a newer artist who might only sell 30,000 copies this time, but 50,000 the next and 100,000 after that than watch 30,000 become 20,000 and then 10,000.

 

[TheBigA]

By the mid-60s, they had come down to formula...three or four albums apiece per year with a pretty girl on the cover and 12 cover versions of contemporary pop songs. And those sold decently to audiences over 50 who couldn't stomach the originals. But the sales figures went down with every one.

Seems to me the creator of the Columbia formula was their head of A&R, Mitch Miller.

One of Columbia's popular singers was Doris Day. She had a son named Terry Melcher who wanted to be a record producer. He signed a California band called The Byrds, produced Mr. Tambourine Man, and Columbia saw the difference between selling records and selling a monster. They wanted more of that.

A few years later, as the Byrds were breaking up for the first time, David Crosby went to Monterey Pop. Columbia lawyer Clive Davis went there too. He met & signed Janis Joplin, and the Columbia formula was changed forever.

 

[michael hagerty]

Seems to me the creator of the Columbia formula was their head of A&R, Mitch Miller.

One of Columbia's popular singers was Doris Day. She had a son named Terry Melcher who wanted to be a record producer. He signed a California band called The Byrds, produced Mr. Tambourine Man, and Columbia saw the difference between selling records and selling a monster. They wanted more of that.

A few years later, as the Byrds were breaking up for the first time, David Crosby went to Monterey Pop. Columbia lawyer Clive Davis went there too. He met & signed Janis Joplin, and the Columbia formula was changed forever.

Absolutely accurate, Big A, but the echoes of Mitch Miller lingered for a decade after.

I used to joke that it was too bad Columbia didn't keep Ray Coniff under contract just long enough for us to see:

Ray Conniff And His Chorus Sing:

"Brass In Pocket"

...and other great songs of today, including

"Whip It"

"Turning Japanese"

"Super Freak"

"My Sharona"

(...you get the idea)

 

[TheBigA]

Absolutely accurate, Big A, but the echoes of Mitch Miller lingered for a decade after.

Although he was gone by then. He left Columbia for MCA in the mid 60s, before psychedelia ruined his creation.

 

[michael hagerty]

By the way, I became aware of Ray's version of "Alone Again (Naturally)" because someone did play it on the radio. It appears in the aircheck of the final hour of KFOG, San Francisco's beautiful music format leading up to their flip to AAA in 1982.

 

[michael hagerty]

Although he was gone by then. He left Columbia for MCA in the mid 60s, before psychedelia ruined his creation.

MCA wisely broomed the catalog (and ultimately ditched UNI and Decca for MCA Records) when the tidal wave came. Poor old Columbia must have had long-term deals with their heritage MOR artists.

 

[semoochie]

I recently watched an old "What's My Line" episode with Mitch Miller as the mystery guest. Someone asked if he was popular with teenagers and the answer was an emphatic yes! I just about fell off the chair!

 

[michael hagerty]

I recently watched an old "What's My Line" episode with Mitch Miller as the mystery guest. Someone asked if he was popular with teenagers and the answer was an emphatic yes! I just about fell off the chair!

That must have been a really old "What's My Line".

 

[firepoint525]

Absolutely accurate, Big A, but the echoes of Mitch Miller lingered for a decade after.
I used to joke that it was too bad Columbia didn't keep Ray Coniff under contract just long enough for us to see:
Ray Conniff And His Chorus Sing:
"Brass In Pocket"
...and other great songs of today, including
"Whip It"
"Turning Japanese"
"Super Freak"
"My Sharona"
(...you get the idea)

Ray Conniff was putting albums out there at least through 1979, because I remember one specific collection of mostly disco songs.

This is one of the funnier ones that I found:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=watoVSi7G-Q

Mostly instrumental, but they did indeed sing the "hare krishna" line! Not as funny as what Jeff posted of the Lawrence Welk singers performing "One Toke Over the Line" (and Lawrence himself calling it a "spiritual"), but still funny nonetheless!

 

[TheFonz]

I recently watched an old "What's My Line" episode with Mitch Miller as the mystery guest. Someone asked if he was popular with teenagers and the answer was an emphatic yes! I just about fell off the chair!

"What's My Line" started in 1950. I think that it's fair to say teenagers bought a lot of records by Columbia artists such as Frankie Laine, Guy Mitchell, The Four Lads and Johnnie Ray. Even Mitch Miller had a hit with "The Yellow Rose Of Texas", which I bought with my allowance as a pre-teen.

 

[landtuna]

I think that it's fair to say teenagers bought a lot of records by Columbia artists such as Frankie Laine, Guy Mitchell, The Four Lads and Johnnie Ray. Even Mitch Miller had a hit with "The Yellow Rose Of Texas", which I bought with my allowance as a pre-teen.

Those teens must have been previous to my generation (late pre-Boomer) because I don't recall any one of my friends having any of those records. I remember seeing Miller perform "Yellow Rose" on a TV show but I don't remember ever hearing it on my local T-40 station.

 

[Avid Listener]

I recently watched an old "What's My Line" episode with Mitch Miller as the mystery guest. Someone asked if he was popular with teenagers and the answer was an emphatic yes! I just about fell off the chair!

So did almost every teenager in America at the time. Just because Mitch Miller answered that he was popular with teenagers didn't mean he was. Maybe he thought he was popular with teenagers. I'm reminded of the bit in "A Hard Day's Night" when the pompous suit tells George that some bimbo is the teenagers' idol, and George sets him straight that the kids only watch to laugh at her and say rude things. Lots of folks in the 50's and beyond thought that generally all teenagers liked them, when it was more like a tiny handful of nerds.

 

[landtuna]

Mitch Miller was our parent's music. It was common knowledge of his "hatred" of the new Rock n Roll music and that alone would have distanced him from my teen peers. In addition, we were pretty race-transparent. We, white teens, liked certain Black and Latino musicians and Miller was, if not an out and out racist, not disposed to giving non-white musicians a break on his label.

 

[JeffM]

Replying back to about a page-and-a-half ago on the declining sales of MOR records in the 80's and beyond, as usual, I respectfully disagree. The sale of this type of music may have dropped off in stores, but it moved to direct-mail. Can't forget all those dollar-a-holler TV commercials in the 80's and 90's for Slim Whitman, Roger Whittaker, Boxcar Willie, etc. They may have been mostly reissue product, but those ads moved tons of platters. The product may have changed a bit to 60's and 70's pop oldies, and the sales approach from hard-sell spots to soft-sell infomercials, but Time-Life still sells lots of old music by carrying over their "subscription" sales method from the magazine business. (A 2-CD set every month for the rest of your life!)

To landtuna; I'd hesitate before calling Mitch Miller a racist, despite what a SOB he may have been in general. During his era at Columbia, Johnny Mathis (who did fit the Miller schmaltz-ballad format) was one of their biggest-selling pop stars, and the label was then releasing lots of now-classic jazz by Miles Davis, Erroll Garner, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong and others.

Re MCA Records; Uni (short for Universal City) Records was hardly lacking in up-and-coming or established pop stars at the time the MCA labels were merged; Elton John was already successful, Neil Diamond, though on his way out there, had a long string of hits, Olivia Newton-John was getting started, and there were others. Decca, though with a lot of older artists, still had The Who and a powerhouse Nashville operation; and Kapp had a re-emerging Sonny and Cher. The label merger was probably just another of Lew Wasserman's bean-counting moves.

 

[radioman148]

As a baby boomer myself I didn't particularly care for Mitch "follow the bouncing ball" Miller, but I did like at least one of his records. "Bridge Over The River Kwai" was and still is in my collection.

 

[Avid Listener]

Mitch Miller was our parent's music. It was common knowledge of his "hatred" of the new Rock n Roll music and that alone would have distanced him from my teen peers.

Not all teens of the 50's and 60's were total "our music" chauvinists. Yes, we preferred rock and roll on the radio. But most of my peers understood and appreciated other genres of music as well. The stage band at my high school played both big band music and symphonic classical music. Some of the hardest rockers in school also sang in the chorus, including taking a first at a choral music competition where we routinely sang works by Bach, Mozart and other classical heavyweights. Even the straight kids went out for roles in the school musical, and learned to sing Broadway show tunes. When we had a chance to get discount tickets for a concert by the local symphony orchestra, something like 20% of the student body went.

 

[michael hagerty]

Replying back to about a page-and-a-half ago on the declining sales of MOR records in the 80's and beyond, as usual, I respectfully disagree. The sale of this type of music may have dropped off in stores, but it moved to direct-mail. Can't forget all those dollar-a-holler TV commercials in the 80's and 90's for Slim Whitman, Roger Whittaker, Boxcar Willie, etc. They may have been mostly reissue product, but those ads moved tons of platters. The product may have changed a bit to 60's and 70's pop oldies, and the sales approach from hard-sell spots to soft-sell infomercials, but Time-Life still sells lots of old music by carrying over their "subscription" sales method from the magazine business. (A 2-CD set every month for the rest of your life!)

To landtuna; I'd hesitate before calling Mitch Miller a racist, despite what a SOB he may have been in general. During his era at Columbia, Johnny Mathis (who did fit the Miller schmaltz-ballad format) was one of their biggest-selling pop stars, and the label was then releasing lots of now-classic jazz by Miles Davis, Erroll Garner, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong and others.

Re MCA Records; Uni (short for Universal City) Records was hardly lacking in up-and-coming or established pop stars at the time the MCA labels were merged; Elton John was already successful, Neil Diamond, though on his way out there, had a long string of hits, Olivia Newton-John was getting started, and there were others. Decca, though with a lot of older artists, still had The Who and a powerhouse Nashville operation; and Kapp had a re-emerging Sonny and Cher. The label merger was probably just another of Lew Wasserman's bean-counting moves.

Jeff: Those artists were on those direct-response TV ads in thr 80s because declining sales cost them their major-label contracts in the 70s.

Mitch didn't have much to do with the jazz artists you mention. Columbia had separate A&R chiefs for pop, jazz and classical. So while Mitch was pushing schmaltz (which I'd argue Mathis rose above, as did Tony Bennett), John Hammond and Goddard Lieberson were responsible for the enduring classics.

Cost-cutting was no doubt part of the motivation in consolidating UNI, Decca and Kapp into MCA Records, but the label made a huge deal in interviews in the trade publications of the time of discussing how they were ditching old-line artists and focusing on contemporary artists.

Essentially, the way it was framed was they were killing Decca and Kapp, voiding remaining artist contracts, moving The Who and Sonny and Cher (as much for Cher's solo stuff as anything) to join Neil Diamond, Olivia Newton-John and Elton John at UNI and then re-naming it MCA Records. The result was one of the few major labels in 1973 not weighed down by a roster of declining MOR artists.

 

[landtuna]

To landtuna; I'd hesitate before calling Mitch Miller a racist, despite what a SOB he may have been in general. During his era at Columbia, Johnny Mathis (who did fit the Miller schmaltz-ballad format) was one of their biggest-selling pop stars, and the label was then releasing lots of now-classic jazz by Miles Davis, Erroll Garner, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong and others.

I didn't call him a racist but his open preference (hostility) for white performers versus musicians of color is well known. On occasion he was overruled by his boss(s).

Avid Listener: Yes, I myself was in a marching band that toured the Western USA and Canada in the mid-50's. Obviously, we did not play RnR but it is what most of us listened to on the AM dial. Growing up I began listening to Country then switched to Pop/Rock as a young teen. Today I listen to most forms of music except opera, jazz, hip-hop and rap (which isn't really music).

 

[semoochie]

I didn't call him a racist but his open preference (hostility) for white performers versus musicians of color is well known. On occasion he was overruled by his boss(s).

Avid Listener: Yes, I myself was in a marching band that toured the Western USA and Canada in the mid-50's. Obviously, we did not play RnR but it is what most of us listened to on the AM dial. Growing up I began listening to Country then switched to Pop/Rock as a young teen. Today I listen to most forms of music except opera, jazz, hip-hop and rap (which isn't really music).

Didn't Mitch Miller discover Leslie Uggams? I'd hardly call him a racist! That may have been a pre-rock "What's My Line", in which case, he may very well have been popular with teenagers. OK, the "What's My Line" episode was from 1961 so there could very well be teenage fans at the time.

 

[michael hagerty]

Mitch Miller not only put Leslie Uggams on "Sing Along With Mitch", he signed her to Columbia Records.

Ditto Roy Hamilton.

Ditto Johnny Mathis.

Digging a bit more, I find Mitch discovered Aretha Franklin and gave her her first recording contract...at Columbia.

I have never heard (until this thread) any accusation that Mitch was a racist. His musical tastes put him out of synch with what many African-American artists were performing at the time, but his musical tastes put him out of synch with Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan, as well.