Word: ascap
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...some time now, I've hesitated to say anything about the ASCAP-BMI fight, purely because I don't believe I know enough about it. Who's at fault is hard to say, although Uncle Sam seems to have all the answers. For may part I'll put a plague on both houses and hope they get it in the neck for trying to put one over on the public...
Both Gene Buck and Neville Miller, mouthpieces for ASCAP and radio respectively, have voiced touching sentiments regarding their affection for the listening public and for what that public wants. Yet right now you and I have to sit around and listen to sugar-tongued announcers' plugging tunes obviously whipped up in an awful hurry for one purpose: to beat a deadline. Band leaders, whose themes songs are their musical John Hancock, are forced to change those themes for tunes which scarcely identify them or their music. Of course, we hear an occasional bell-ringer like There I Go, but that...
Since January 1 when ASCAP and the major broadcasting systems began their fight, the public has been on the receiving end of a bewildering galaxy of forgotten tunes. Rhumbas and all kinds of Spanish and French songs stuff the ether waves. Tunes like Tales of the Vienna Woods and Glenn Miller's swing version of The Volga Boatman are being played a hundred times a day. Hardest hit was the Lucky Strike Hit Parader, which had a sad time scaring up enough pieces to fill its heretofore overcrowded fifteen honor spots. Fred Waring has had to give up his theme...
...inauguration of the President will be a rather dull one as far as music is concerned, because ASCAP has possession of all of Sousa's best marching songs. CBS and NBC are building soundproof broadcasting units along Pennsylvania Avenue in order to prevent any music from going out over the air. God Bless America, the new national anthem, will not be heard at all until this argument is settled...
From the way the warring sides are standing pat, it appears that the federal government will have to step in and take over swing music. The monopoly of ASCAP is being classed as an offense against the anti-trust laws. Whoever decides the issue had better do it quickly before the radio public gets tired of listening to the same old songs and turns off its radios for good...