Hey, what do you want to bet the book on love letters dated back to the '20's or '30's? I'd bet a burrito the records were made by studio guys just trying to sell records on their own and the records got sold off when they broke up. (There are no NAMES connected to the songs, and I'm betting they were a country and western outfit that did the gospel and hit parade to cover their bets.)
I've long been fascinated by these comic-book record offers. Given how ubiquitous they were it's surprising how little seems to have been written about them. I've never seen one of these discs, even in photos, but a few people online reported having heard them back in the day.
What follows is a bunch of speculation based on what little I've dug up through research. Maybe someone who actually produced records (I'm thinking of you, Robb) can blow it all out of the water and tell the real story. If so, I welcome the clarification.
From what I've pieced together there seem to have been (1) one or more companies (perhaps record-pressing plants?) who mass-produced these things for next to nothing, then sold them in bulk to resellers at a few pennies per disc. I've found ads in the tiny-print classified section of 1950s music trade papers offering wholesale lots of hit-song and country-western compilations. These are likely the ones advertised in comics.
Most 78 RPM records ran about three minutes on a side. In the latter days when 78s switched from shellac to vinyl they figured out how to squeeze a little extra music onto each side. Prolific cover-version label "Tops" managed to put two more-or-less complete songs on each side of a 78. (2) But I never understood how they could put three songs on a side.
According to people who saw the records, they did it by chopping each song down to a minute-plus.
(3) The anonymous performers would bang out a verse and a chorus and then it was out the back door for lunch. The players were no doubt session musicians, newcomers, and fading old-timers slumming for a few bucks to pay the rent. I'm willing to bet there were more than a few customers who felt cheated when they received their amazing hit parade collections.
Of course the production companies didn't bother with the niceties of licensing, union contracts, or royalties. Apparently it was much easier to get away with that sort of thing back in the day. I've found a few late-1950s legal cases in which rights holders successfully sued companies like Woolworth's for selling what they called "pirated" recordings. (4) It's not clear if these records were actual pirate copies of commercial recordings or unauthorized new recordings of copyrighted songs. The latter seems more likely. In the mid-50s Tops Music Enterprises, the outfit I mentioned above, lost to music publisher Harms, Inc., over an unauthorized recording of one particular song. The case is cited as precedent in other actions but the judgement couldn't have been too bad because Tops wasn't sued out of existence. It rolled along for several more years and died only when the surviving founding partner retired and sold the label to a guy who went broke.
Crash, you have raised come great questions, and made very impressively accurate guesses of their answers.
As record collecting was, in a way, more near and dear to my heart than comic book collecting, this topic is very interesting to me. As a young comic book reader in the late 1940s and early 1950s, I saw those adverts but usually ignored most of them, except the funny novelty ads, just to see what strange things were available. By 1954, when I had been introduced to junk stores, thrift stores, bargain bins in record shops, and used record shelves in book and furniture stores, I was introduced to "budget record labels", which contained recordings of the Pop and C&W hit songs of the day, or very popular traditional folk(including older Hill Billy songs) and Spiritual songs. I saw issues of the two main national U.S. budget record labels, "Tops Records" and "Hit Records". There were also several smaller, regional companies in that field.
(1) I think it is possible that one or a few of the biggest budget record companies were owned by owners who also owned record pressing plants. Promenade Records was a late 1950s budget "knock-off" label that was owned by Synthetic Plastics Company, who obviously operated their own record pressing plant, and likely their own record mastering service and had at least a small recording studio. Here is one of their 45 RPM EP records with 2 cuts on each side:
You can listen to this uncredited Rock-A-Billy singer singing Elvis Presley's "Don't Be Cruel" here (on YouTube):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qArfUgnXV8cHere is a Tops 45 RPM EP with 2 cuts on each side. "Come Go With Me" by Maurice Washington and The Toppers is noteworthy because it was sung likely by a talented group that had some later (or earlier) success on the R&B charts. "The Toppers" was the company house band name, which was mainly a "whitebread" milquetoast studio group, but once in a great while Tops actually got quality professional groups and singers in to record "ethnic" music. Personally, despite the lead singer singing in falsetto, I like it better than The Dell Vikings' original. The group is tight, and The band is quite good and very professional. I really love the sax solo in the break. It's in a group of about 8 to 10 recordings out of several thousand that I've heard on budget labels, that I deem worth a listen:
It can be heard here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtYMwfvW0w8I also know of several pressing plants in Detroit, Chicago, and New York Metro Areas, whose owners also operated record producing companies, (which also had record mastering facilities and had their own in-house recording studios, which were, at the very least, adequate enough for recording demo records, and they had acetate record producing capability (all of which was high-level enough for producing "budget records" / hit songs sung by unknown, uncredited artists (or credited to people or groups using false names)). Shelley Plastic Products of Huntington Station (Long Island) New York, ran a large record pressing plant, whose owners also owned Crest Records (1954-58) and Golden Crest Records (1959-65). They also had a small, in-house, recording studio for demos. But, I don't know of any connection to a budget record label. USA Records, a large national record distributing company headquartered in Chicago, also had their own record label (of the same name), and was affiliated with a Chicago pressing plant. But, I don't know of any budget label associated with them. I doubt that RCA, or Columbia Records, both of whom operated major pressing plants on The East Coast, in The Midwest, and in California, had their own budget labels. I don't know of any connection between the owners of Monarch Pressing Plant in Los Angeles to any budget label (although some of Tops' late 1950s and early '60s records seemed to have been pressed in their plant). Like Shelley in New York, and Columbia Midwest pressing plant (Terre Haute, Indiana), L.A.'s Monarch plant was one of the few that pressed mainly polystyrene records. The only other plant in L.A. that likely pressed Tops Records was Allied Metal Products.
The "Weird Tales" record advert listed "Hit Tunes Co.", of Newark, New Jersey, as the address to send the payment coupon. There was a major record pressing plant in Newark, and another major pressing plant in northern New Jersey during the 1950s. The plant most likely used to press East Coast budget records during the 1950s was Abbey Record MFG. Co, also in Newark. But, I've never heard of any ownership connection between them and a budget label.
I never saw any of the budget records for sale at retail prices in record shops (although, a few of them found their way into bargain bins there). So, the budget labels had to market their records through discount (5 and dime, and dime stores) and chain discount stores (like Woolworth's and Walgreen's), and the direct market from the producer, through ads in comic books and magazines.
(2) As I remember, extended play records (EPs) (2+ songs per side), usually were restricted to only 1 song
until 1949, when RCA introduced its microgroove process. That immediately ushered in the 45 RPM era. So, starting in 1949, Tops Records and Hit Records could issue 78 RPM EP records with 2 songs per side, and 45 RPM records EP with 3 per side. I think that Tops Records also sold 10 inch, and later, 12 inch LP albums with 5 (and later 6) songs per side (starting from 1954 or 1955). The budget labels DID try to keep the length of their versions down to from about 1:50 to about 2:15 or so, to be able to fit their desired 3 cuts to a side. on singles, 5 to a side on 10 inch LPs, and 6 to a side on 12 inch LPs.
Related to QQ's comment that all different music genres weren't represented, Tops produced other genres in several more subsidiary labels (Gilmar, Mayfair(StereoLPs), Melody(C&W), and Tops "Kiddie Series", and Tops "Organ All-Time Hit Series". They even covered Blues R&B, and Jazz in their "Harlem Hit Parade" series. But in many years of combing Ghetto thrift, junk stores, and record shop bargain bins, I've only seen a handful of issues of that label. So, I doubt that budget records sold much, at all, in that market.
Tops Records was located in Los Angeles, and ran from 1947-1962 (when they were bought out by Pickwick, International (who were later bought out by Capitol Records (who were later bought out by E.M.I.). The larger "Hit Records" budget label was located in Nashville, and actually used a few singing artists who had later careers with regular commercial record labels, and some even had charted "hits". But most of their singers were totally unknowns or marginal to that industry. Hit operated from 1962-1965. Herbert Hunter, who sang one of the most iconic Northern Soul hits, was one of the most prolific artists for Hit Records. There was an earlier, much smaller, "Hit Records" budget label operating in the early-to-mid 1950s operating somewhere on The East Coast, which could possibly have been affiliated with the "Hit Tunes Co. of the comic book advert. I'd be curious to know whether or not it was, but have not been able to discover any connection, so far.
Most of the singers for budget labels were young singer wannabees, who would make some cash to buy food and pay the rent when just starting out in the business, to get recording experience, and free demo tapes of themselves, to shop themselves to the "legitimate" record companies' producers. Others were has been single artists, or groups, who had made it in the business years before, and whose popularity had long faded, and needed the money just to survive.
Some very famous singers and groups recorded for budget labels, like The Ink Spots, "Scatman" Crothers, Dave Burgess, Lawrence Welk, and Country Pop singer, Ronny Deauville. There were several others, but I can't remember their names. But a few of those were early 1960s Pop and Soul singers, who sang for another (newer) L.A.-based budget company (Monogram Records), and also a Chicago-based company (Seeburg Records) who supplied records especially made for juke boxes, which were new recordings of hit tunes, but also original material. That Chicago-based company had 2 different recording studios and offices, one in Chicago, and one in Nashville, and, unlike most of the budget record labels, used some successful current popular Chicago and Nashville -based singing and instrumental artists and bands, as well as high-level recording equipment and highly-skilled, successful musicians.
(3) Budget label's singers were not contracted, but usually just "piece workers", paid by the session. Musicians were mostly regular, albeit marginal, union session players, but working on these non-union sessions "off the books" often paid in cash, just to make extra money between major extended gigs.
(4) No, these were never "pirated" (e.g. stolen) copies of recordings of singers singing under contract for other record companies. They were always new recordings made of other singers sing that hit song in a style as close to the hit version as they could make it in one take, with a non-contract singer, paying less than union wages to union musicians, and often using cheap, low-quality recording equipment. Although, a few pressing plant owners actually operated standard commercial record companies which used union artists and musicians, and also normal record distributors, and the records were played on the radio, but also marketed budget lines, a few didn't even bother to separate the two different genres into different label series.
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Topic: Reading Group #292 The unusual art of Basil Wolverton (Read 2554 times)
