Music: Telephonic Juke

No. 1 distributor of phonograph music is the humble jukebox, which absorbs some 44% of the output of U. S. popular records, plays them at a nickel a throw in bars, dance dives and lunch counters throughout the U. S. In its simple form, the juke-box is complete with coin slots, colored lights and automatic record-changing mechanism for a stack of twelve to 24 discs. But during the past year, in a few western and midwestern U. S. cities, the juke-box has been menaced by science’s onward march. The menace: a chain system of jukeboxes, all wired to a central studio with a practically unlimited choice of records, and subscribers all over town. Last week one of the largest companies in the new wired juke-box field, Magic Music, Inc. of Columbus, Ohio, began supplying 32 Detroit nightspots.

In Magic Music’s headquarters in the Penobscot Building, studio operators, working six-hour tricks with telephone-girl’s headsets, paraded back & forth before long rows of phonograph turntables, each supplying a different bar or nightclub. As patrons dropped their nickels into the slot and phoned their requests, the operators consulted their elaborately cross-indexed files, picked the disc from among 8,000 titles, played it back to the club the request came from. To music-hungry Detroiters, the climax of the evening came when they discovered they could have their requests played not only in their own bar but in any of the other 31 bars subscribing to the service. Not only that, they could dedicate the performance to anybody who was, at that moment, in any of the other hangouts. Example: A Detroiter in the Brass Rail, who knew that his friend O’Malley was in the Ring Side Bar, could shove in his nickel and request that a number be played in the Ring Side for O’Malley’s benefit. Soon, in the Ring Side, a sweet female voice would announce: “To John O’Malley the following number is respectfully dedicated: Get Out of Town.” Philandering wives and husbands were startled to hear Magic Music’s voice loudly dedicating to them such ditties as Ain’t You ‘Shamed?

President of Magic Music, Inc. is Columbus’ Richard Wiggins, whose company gets 75% of the take (average: $30 a week) of each machine. By week’s end, Magic Music, Inc. had decided its Detroit venture was a huge success, planned also to go into business in Washington, later in Manhattan.