Music: How to Pick Winners

Once a week at 11 p.m., an odd group gathers in a windowless office above Manhattan’s old Palace Theater. Around a spinning turntable sit a former executive of a record company, a young philosophy major, a onetime pressagent, the former owner of a record company who is now getting his M.A. in history, and an ex-Army public-relations officer who has studied music at Juilliard. They form the music staff of The Billboard, 60-year-old amusement weekly (circ. 49,966) that has become the bible of the music trade. By picking pop tunes for listing in the paper’s widely respected “Spotlight” columns, they do what almost everybody in the business tries to do—pick hits in advance.

An Evening at the Turntable. On a typical night, the group settled down for a session with a batch of new records.

Likely winners would be “put in the book” for probable listing in “Spotlight”; the rest would be turned down. Reporter Bob Rolontz (the M.A. candidate) was seated behind the turntable, cigar in mouth, pertinent data about title, label, publisher and performers at his fingertips. “Viola Dixxy—yeah, two x’s,” he announced, “singing Everyone Is Saying. We heard this last week, but maybe it’s worth listening again for the girl—new talent.” He played a few bars of a nondescript song by a pleasant, commonplace voice. “The girl, that’s all there is to it,” said someone over the noise. “Doesn’t she sound like Patti Page?” said another. “Yeah, maybe too much.” After a chorus Rolontz lifted the needle. Music Editor Joe Martin (formerly London Records’ advertising manager) looked around the room. “O.K.? Put it in the book—as a talent pick.” Gary Kramer (the philosophy student) jotted it down.

Next record: a vocalist named Rusty Draper (“Real sincere, but a little cold lately”), singing In the Workshop of the Lord. This was “a sacred thing,” but what the hell could you do with the pairing? On the other side of the record was a hot-rhythm number. Turned down.

Paul Whiteman in a new recording of his old arrangements of Whispering and You’re Driving Me Crazy. The youngsters in the group hooted, but 46-year-old Associate Indoor Editor Paul Ackerman counseled caution. The record did have something. Better put it in the book and listen to it again.

Julius La Rosa singing In My Own Quiet Way. Comments: “Oldfashioned Tommy Dorsey sort of thing,” and “Too many words.” Turned down.

Cam Mia, with a vocal by Johnny Amoroso. The soupy melody is currently the No. 2 hit in Britain. Said Ackerman: “A lot of squares will think this is an immortal work.” But apparently not enough: turned down.

A new male trio. Said Rolontz of the publisher: “This guy will kill himself to make a hit out of this. He formed this group himself.” Said Martin: “It’s loud, and it has a shuffle beat. Everybody loves a shuffle beat right now.” Booked.

An orchestra doing Tambourine. “Instrumental records are not moving now.” Turned down.

I’m No Gonna Say, with Ronnie Gaylord. “Sure, he approaches a note from both sides, but he does a chorus in Italian that always goes big. Besides, he is always on the lists.” Booked.

The Cadillac Factor. By then it was 1:30 a.m. The score for the evening: 20 turned down; ten booked—four pops, one country-and-western, four rhythm-and-blues plus one “talent pick.” Some of the records would be heard again for a second guessing. Of the records finally listed in Billboard’s “Spotlight” as probable hits, at least half usually make it, are then listed in its authoritative dealer-survey charts. Merely being in “Spotlight” usually assures at least 25,000 additional orders for a record. In a sharply competitive, half-billion-dollar business—of about 3,000 pop songs to be published this year, no more than 90 can expect to become hits —Billboard’s skilled and honest record handicapping is a big factor.

Billboard staffers are painfully aware that they are not looking for musical quality but only for the elusive symptoms of popularity. When they first heard Jimmy Boyd’s I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, they walked out of the room in disgust, but they realized it was bound to “please the squares” and spotlighted it (it has sold some 2,000,000 copies).

Says Editor Martin: “We can’t make a hit by spotlighting it. We picked Felicia Sanders’ Embrasse because her Song from Moulin Rouge was selling so fast, but Embrasse never even showed. And we can’t keep a record from making No. 1 just because we miss it. We just couldn’t stand Pittsburgh, Pa. and didn’t pick it. It hit hard. But on the whole, we ‘do pretty well, considering the kind of details we have to take into account—from the amount of push a record gets down to the amount of attention the artist pays the disk jockeys. I could name a top girl singer who slipped because of that. She used to drop in on every deejay wearing a skirt and tight sweater. Then she started driving up in a Cadillac and a mink stole. Somehow the jocks began skipping her records.”