Terms Which Have Disappeared

[Fading Fast]

One lyric change that made me think when it happened - to Lizzie's point, what social conscience or worldview changed - is in "Some Girls" by the Rolling Stones where, when the song was released in 1978, it had a particularly nasty racial lyric about the sexual desires of black women (the song goes through a list of ethnicities and each group's female proclivities - none very nice), but (and I don't remember when it changed) by the '00s, on albums and live, the Stones took out the line about black women (but kept in all the other not-nice stuff about the other ethnicities).

What changed? The song couldn't have been written before the late '60s as nothing was that sexually and ethnically blatant before then, but by '78, the song's lyrics created only a very minor stir when it was released. Overall, the range of acceptable music lyrics since then, IMHO, has become rawer, nastier and more explicit, so what caused the Stones to edit out just that one line? While I'd like to believe our society has become more genuinely sensitive to these issues (I think we have), today, we also, as mentioned, accept aggressively nasty song lyrics (I hear them in the gym and sometimes wonder how we've gotten here) - so why did the Stones engaged in (what I'm guessing is) self editing?

 

[scottyrocks]

It could have been because of 'the radio.' There were a few songs since then that had a line or word or two changed for the radio version of a song.

 

[vitanola]

The Fred Astaire movie, Top Hat, was released in 1935, only five years after the Harry Richman performance. Was someone's social conscience throbbing at the "high hat" attitude it showed to social inferiors? I'd like to know how the lyric was changed. According to the savants on WikiPedia, Irving Berlin wrote the lyrics in 1927, only eight years before Fred Astaire performed it, not two decades.

What, pray tell, has "Top Hat" to do with "Ritz"? It ain't "The Piccolino", after all.

Oh, and Astaire performed "Ritz" in 1930. WITH THE CORRECT LYRICS. Here is his January, 1930 waxing for Columbia, with Ben Selvin's Orchestra (the house band at the Columbia studios at the time).

This was recorded sixteen years before the bowlderized version appeared in "Blue Skies". Anyone with passing familiarity with Twentieth Century popular music performing practice would correctly assume that the lush Bob Dolan ( or perhaps Matty Matlock, there is some argument, as the arangers were not credited on this picture and both later claimed credit) orchestrations which accompany the modified lyrics could only post-date 1945.

 

[vitanola]

It could have been because of 'the radio.' There were a few songs since then that had a line or word or two changed for the radio version of a song.

An excellent example would be the 1932 hit from "George Whites Music Hall Varieties"; "Let's Put Out the Lights and Go to Bed", which on the radio became "Let's Put Out the Lights and Go to Sleep".

 

[Fading Fast]

It could have been because of 'the radio.' There were a few songs since then that had a line or word or two changed for the radio version of a song.

That makes sense for the radio, but I've seen them live and they edit it out of those shows as well - even the ones that aren't being recorded for potential video / album releases. Sadly, I know too much about the band and have been to too many concerts, etc., so I can say it's obviously a conscious decision as there is only one other song that I noticed this self editing.

Occasionally they'll alter a word or line from this or that song when performing it live - but they'll flip back and forth between the "new" and the original in the next stanza or the next time they play it - but for "Some Girls," they have tried to 1984 that line down the memory hole.

 

[LizzieMaine]

An excellent example would be the 1932 hit from "George Whites Music Hall Varieties"; "Let's Put Out the Lights and Go to Bed", which on the radio became "Let's Put Out the Lights and Go to Sleep".

There was quite a bit of this during the early '30s, as the networks came to grips with the need to please both urban sophisticates and mid-American Grundies. The big song hit of 1930, "Body and Soul," ran into problems with "my life a HELL you're making," and ended up on the NBC ban list for several months, despite the fact that the network's dramatic programs at the time freely used "hell" and "damn."

Drug lyrics were also problematic during the thirties. The networks went into a real snit after Cole Porter appeared on Rudy Vallee's program in 1934 and sang about how he got no kick from cocaine, but renditions of such songs as "Reefer Man" and "Minnie The Moocher," passed without comment. Apparently the censors were not entirely hep to the jive.

As for modern-era stuff, it was common for many rock-type songs to be released on promo 45s with a "radio edit" on one side and the uncensored version on the other. The uncensored version would often be deliberately gouged with a screwdriver to ensure that it didn't get played on the air.

 

[Fading Fast]

I'm sure this one has come up before in the previous 281 pages, but you don't hear "phooey" used much anymore (but it come up regularly in classic movies).

 

[3fingers]

I'm sure this one has come up before in the previous 281 pages, but you don't hear "phooey" used much anymore (but it come up regularly in classic movies).

And related to "phooey" is "piffle". Piffle was a favorite exclamation of my father.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I remember reading a '30s comic book story featuring a fake-Fu Manchu villian called "Fui Onyui." It took quite a while before I got the joke.

 

[Fading Fast]

And related to "phooey" is "piffle". Piffle was a favorite exclamation of my father.

Piffle always seemed a more upscaled cousin of phooey.

 

[Upgrade]

Most 78s of the 20s and 30s had a small addendum on the record label claiming “Not licensed for radio broadcast”. It took a while for record companies to accept that radio could help with record sales. The Great Depression certainly didn’t help.

Though I wonder how often the “restriction” was broken.

 

[LizzieMaine]

That line was the result of a lawsuit filed against the Victor company by Fred Waring when he discovered a local New York station broadcasting a "recreation" of one of his live programs using his commercially-released records. Paul Whiteman soon followed with a lawsuit against station WNEW charging that it was playing his records in spite of the restriction clause, and these cases dragged on into the early forties. The ultimate result was the 1942 strike by the American Federation of Musicians demanding that recording companies pay into a royalty fund in exchange for the right to play records by union members over the air.

Not many airchecks of local recorded-music programs from the mid-thirties exist, but a few do -- and you end up hearing an interesting mix of music. I have many hours of recordings from a group of small Brooklyn stations from 1936-37, and one of these stations flouts the restriction at every turn, playing a great many identifiable current records by popular artists, nearly all of them on the Decca label. But another seems to be scared to death of getting in trouble, and gets the bulk of its recorded music from a beat up collection of old "Hit of The Week" records dating to 1931-32, manufactured before the restriction notice was used.

Most stations, though, ended up not using commercially-released records at all, subscribing instead to transcription library services like World or NBC Thesaurus, which offered specially-recorded material specifically licensed for broadcast use. The main drawback to these services was that most of the big name artists were contracturally required to appear under pseudonyms -- although any 'gator worth her saddle shoes didn't have any trouble figuring out that "Harvey Tweed" was really Tommy Dorsey.

 

[Fading Fast]

...Most stations, though, ended up not using commercially-released records at all, subscribing instead to transcription library services like World or NBC Thesaurus, which offered specially-recorded material specifically licensed for broadcast use. The main drawback to these services was that most of the big name artists were contracturally required to appear under pseudonyms -- although any 'gator worth her saddle shoes didn't have any trouble figuring out that "Harvey Tweed" was really Tommy Dorsey.

So if I followed this, the transcription library services had the top-names like Tommy Dorsey recording but under fake names - were they recording "their" songs though? For example, would Glen Miller recored "Moonlight Serenade" but as "John Smith" or did he write new/different songs specifically for the "transcription library services?"

 

[LizzieMaine]

Yep, most of them rerecorded their hits for the transcription libraries, along with a lot of numbers they didn't record commercially. Those transcription cuts are highly prized by enthusiasts, especially the World recordings, which were vertically-cut in a high-fidelity process that gives really impressive sound.

The Thesaurus library used "The Rhythm Makers" as its most common house pseudonym, and quite a few important bands recorded under that name, including those of Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Bunny Berigan, and Les Brown. But it was easy to recognize the arrangements and know who was who. Quite a few of these recordings have been collected and reissued on LP or CD under the artists' proper names.

(A typical Thesaurus disc from 1935. All of these cuts are instantly recognizable as being by Benny Goodman, especially "Dear Old Southland," a Horace Henderson arrangement which was one of Goodman's signature numbers.)

The transcription services offered a full package of musical styles -- swing bands, sweet bands, hillbilly bands, classical and concert artists, even novelty and comedy performers. They also supplied pre-written continuities for local announcers, designating which cuts to play and giving introductory remarks -- the whole thing gave the local station a completely self-contained system for programming local recorded-music features. Most stations from the mid-thirties forward subscribed to either World, Thesaurus, or the Standard Transcription Library, and there were several smaller fry in the business -- Associated Transcriptions, Lang-Worth, Muzak, United Transcription Services, etc. Some bands recorded for more than one of these operations, adding yet another layer of pseudonyms to be unraveled. One of the stations where I worked had subscribed to the Standard library, and still had most of the transcriptions, stored in huge metal filing cabinets which I cheerfully rifled when I found out they were to be discarded.

 

[Fading Fast]

Really cool info ⇧ thank you. Kinda crazy that it happened, but knowing how the mix of contracts, lawsuits and commercial demands played - and still plays - out in so many situations, not really surprising.

Also, "Harvey Tweed" very cute play off of Harris Tweed I assume.

 

[Upgrade]

Was there a point when transcriptions stopped using pseudonyms? I have some Standard Program Library with Johnny Bond and Bob Crosby, Thesaurus with Tex Beneke, World Transcription with Helen Forrest and Hank Thompson, and MacGregor with Nat King Cole and Peggy Lee.

And of course, there’s the multitude of stars recordings for the Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS) transcription discs.

Or did these artists become popular after their transcription days?

Say, did you manage to snag one of the filing cabinets as well? Storage for 16” discs is becoming a problem.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Most of the pseudonyms occured during the 1930s, when many of the performers were under contract not just to record companies but also to radio sponsors. Commercial sponsorship of swing bands decreased sharply with the collapse of the "Swing Era" during the war years, so the need for pseudonyms also decreased.

AFRS was a whole separate game. Those recordings were never intended to get into the hands of the public, and special permission was granted by the record companies, the radio sponsors, and the AF of M allowing these recordings to be made and distributed on the express condition that they not get into civilian hands, and that they be destroyed once their mliltary function was concluded. You can see how well that worked out. Technically, all of them in private hands are stolen government property, and for a while the Department of Defense was actively policing Ebay and interceding in auctions where AFRS material was offered, but they seem not to be paying much attention now.

Those cabinets ended up being junked -- I didn't have any room to store them at the time, so I was only able to cherrypick the discs I specifically wanted. As I recall, most of the ones I pilfered were the Spike Jones recordings.

 

[Fading Fast]

Lizzie, was the pseudonyms-transcription structure a legal and accepted way around the artists' contracts - i.e., was Tommy Dorsey absolutely allowed to record and get paid as Harvey Tweed - or was it a "grey" area?

 

[LizzieMaine]

More or less. I'm pretty sure that Brown and Williamson, Dorsey's radio sponsor, knew he was making these recordings and that they were being distributed to stations, but the fact that he was not allowed to make these discs under his own name sufficiently preserved the necessary exclusivity of name to satisfy their lawyers.

Basically the concern was that local stations were using recordings to duplicate live programs, for which performers were exclusively contracted to networks and sponsors. If Dorsey was on NBC once a week to sell Raleighs and Kools, the sponsor had a legitimate reason to beef if the local station could essentially duplicate the program using records and have Joe's Pool Room sponsor it. If Joe's therefore had the same access to Dorsey's name and music that B&W had at a fraction of the cost, what was the point of even having network radio and why was the company spending tens of thousands of dollars a week to put on the "Raleigh Kool Show Featuring Tommy Dorsey and his Orchestra?"

This was a huge issue in broadcasting during the 1930s -- keep in mind that network radio was only a decade old, and a lot of these issues were coming up that had never been considered as a possibility. NBC as an organization tried to play both ends in the middle -- it was owned by RCA, which owned Victor Records, so you'd think they wouldn't have anything to lose from recordings. But the sponsors and the ad agencies that kept the network a going concern had other ideas -- so they had to come up with this system of pseudonymous transcription libraries to keep everybody satisfied.

Of course, all that said, the idea of recording artists spreading themselves around with pseudonyms was very common before radio. Many artists of the 1910s and 1920s recorded under their true name for a major label, and under fake names for competing labels, many of them cheap dime-store knockoff brands. The popular vocalist Harold "Scrappy" Lambert was everywhere in the late twenties and early thirties, recording for Brunswick under his real name, and as Burt Lorin, Gordon Wallace, Glen Burt, Harold Clarke, Robert Wood, Larry Holton, Buddy Blue, and a couple of dozen additional names for other labels. As long as the check was made out to the right name, nobody paid much attention.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Call me mint jelly, cause I'm on the lam!