y***@yahoo.com
2006-06-09 19:58:09 UTC
The allusion to "Make Believe Ballroom" which crossed my mind the other
day when the mention of Glen Gray came up led to check up and check
into the famous radio show a deeper:
Did Martin Block single-handedly change the course of radio? Was he
really this important as this article claims? I had no idea he was
THIS important, if so....
http://www.wnew1130.com/future_of_radio.shtml
[quote as follows]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[The] Future of Radio
New Yorks Daily News 3/17/04
By DAVID HINCKLEY
Martin Block
As the only station broadcasting from inside the New Jersey courtroom
where Bruno Richard Hauptmann was on trial for the kidnapping and
murder of Charles A. Lindbergh's infant son, New York radio station
WNEW had itself a huge coup. It also had a problem.
WNEW's on-site reporter and engineer were not set up to carry
play-by-play coverage of the trial, only periodic bulletins. But
because public interest was so high, WNEW didn't want to switch to,
say, an orchestral remote that would prevent the station from using its
logistical advantage to break in with each shard of news.
A month or so after the trial began in January 1935, a solution to this
dilemma was proposed by a low-level employee named Martin Block, a
good-natured, ambitious fellow with slicked-back hair and a pencil-thin
mustache in the sophisticated style of the mid-'30s.
Block was the warm body sitting at the microphone back in the WNEW
studios at 501 Madison Ave., and his suggestion to WNEW general manager
Bernice Judis was that he fill the downtime by playing records.
Something that, in early 1935, respectable radio stations hardly ever
did. For a station like WNEW prided itself on live music. Records were
lazy and redundant. If a listener wanted a record, he or she would buy
it, not turn on the radio.
{poster's insert: Many marquee radio stations had "house bands",
whole big band orchestras in their employ, besides concert and club
work I suppose they also did. For example, in Philadelphia, Jan
Savitt & His Top Hatters, of "720 In The Books" hit fame (plus many
other fine records, and a great African-American star lead singer in
this early integrated (!) band, "Bon-Bon") were the house band at KYW
radio, one of the major stations in the history of Philly radio - now
all news 24/7 since mid-'64.}
Ironically, many artists felt the same way for exactly the opposite
reason. They were afraid that if fans could hear their recordings on
the radio, those fans would not buy records any more.
But WNEW was stuck, Block persisted, and on Feb. 3, Judis told this
$25-a-week part-time staff announcer pest to go ahead and do it. Block
faced one final hurdle, which was that WNEW didn't own any records. So
he trotted out to the nearest Liberty Record Shop and bought five of
them, all by Clyde McCoy. He also launched his plan, which basically
was to demonstrate that records were the future of radio.
Block, A New York kid who was born to sell, had started his career
peddling razor blades and potato peelers off a sound truck on Broadway.
By the early 1930s, he had moved to the West Coast, where he got his
first radio job with a two-bit outfit in Tijuana and then worked his
way up to Los Angeles. One of the big shots in L.A. then was Al Jarvis
of KFWB, who played records regularly and around 1932 began calling
part of his show "The World's Biggest Make-Believe Ballroom." He would
play several records in a row by the same artist while painting a
picture for his listeners of this music wafting over a sparkling dance
floor.
Now, three years later, Block envisioned crafting his WNEW show on the
same model, and that was fine with Judis. The problem was the sales
staff, which told him no sponsor would buy time for a program of
prerecorded music. So Block went out and found his own sponsor: the
makers of Retardo pills, a harmless if useless weight loss gimmick that
sold for $1 a box. "Ladies," Block would purr into the microphone, "be
fair to your husband by taking the reducing pill."
A week later Block and WNEW claimed Retardo had received 3,750
responses, and soon enough there was little doubt the show was a hit.
Within a few years, "The Make-Believe Ballroom" commanded a remarkable
25% of the radio audience. Block became friends with stars like Glenn
Miller, who needed him to play their records, and for his sponsors he
claimed to have invented two of the most popular cigarette slogans
ever: "ABC: Always Buy Chesterfield" and "LS/MFT," for "Lucky Strike
Means Fine Tobacco."
The first theme of "Make-Believe Ballroom," naturally, was a Clyde
McCoy number, "Sugar Blues." That was bumped by Charlie Barnett's
"Make-Believe Ballroom," which in turn yielded to Miller's "It's
Make-Believe Ballroom Time." Block co-wrote the lyrics to that one and,
after Miller was killed in a plane crash in December 1944, Block
announced that "Make-Believe Ballroom Time" would remain the theme
forever.
"Make-Believe Ballroom" went into national syndication in 1940, and by
the end of World War II, Martin Block was making $22,000 a week. Then,
in August 1946, KFWB announced that Block was coming west to take over
the show there. Almost a year of headlines later, in June 1947, he did.
And he promptly tripped over his shoelaces.
Angelenos considered him an obnoxious, arrogant, know-it-all New Yorker
and tuned him out by the millions. By the fall of '48 he was ready to
return to New York, to take advantage of the new television
opportunities. He tried to. But he was not a TV guy, and soon he was
back at WNEW. In 1954, he jumped to ABC radio and, when the tidal wave
of rock 'n' roll crashed onto the shore, he jumped to WOR, where he did
weekend shows until his death in 1967. WNEW continued the "Make-Believe
Ballroom" with a string of other hosts. Descendant programs are heard
to this day.
While Martin Block may have felt his real calling was to sell diet
pills and Edwin cigars, many radio people feel he was to radio what
Bing Crosby was to recording: the first to introduce an intimate,
personal style rather than a disembodied voice of authority.
Whatever his legacy, the Make-Believe Ballroom was the best dance value
in town.
[End Quote]
day when the mention of Glen Gray came up led to check up and check
into the famous radio show a deeper:
Did Martin Block single-handedly change the course of radio? Was he
really this important as this article claims? I had no idea he was
THIS important, if so....
http://www.wnew1130.com/future_of_radio.shtml
[quote as follows]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[The] Future of Radio
New Yorks Daily News 3/17/04
By DAVID HINCKLEY
Martin Block
As the only station broadcasting from inside the New Jersey courtroom
where Bruno Richard Hauptmann was on trial for the kidnapping and
murder of Charles A. Lindbergh's infant son, New York radio station
WNEW had itself a huge coup. It also had a problem.
WNEW's on-site reporter and engineer were not set up to carry
play-by-play coverage of the trial, only periodic bulletins. But
because public interest was so high, WNEW didn't want to switch to,
say, an orchestral remote that would prevent the station from using its
logistical advantage to break in with each shard of news.
A month or so after the trial began in January 1935, a solution to this
dilemma was proposed by a low-level employee named Martin Block, a
good-natured, ambitious fellow with slicked-back hair and a pencil-thin
mustache in the sophisticated style of the mid-'30s.
Block was the warm body sitting at the microphone back in the WNEW
studios at 501 Madison Ave., and his suggestion to WNEW general manager
Bernice Judis was that he fill the downtime by playing records.
Something that, in early 1935, respectable radio stations hardly ever
did. For a station like WNEW prided itself on live music. Records were
lazy and redundant. If a listener wanted a record, he or she would buy
it, not turn on the radio.
{poster's insert: Many marquee radio stations had "house bands",
whole big band orchestras in their employ, besides concert and club
work I suppose they also did. For example, in Philadelphia, Jan
Savitt & His Top Hatters, of "720 In The Books" hit fame (plus many
other fine records, and a great African-American star lead singer in
this early integrated (!) band, "Bon-Bon") were the house band at KYW
radio, one of the major stations in the history of Philly radio - now
all news 24/7 since mid-'64.}
Ironically, many artists felt the same way for exactly the opposite
reason. They were afraid that if fans could hear their recordings on
the radio, those fans would not buy records any more.
But WNEW was stuck, Block persisted, and on Feb. 3, Judis told this
$25-a-week part-time staff announcer pest to go ahead and do it. Block
faced one final hurdle, which was that WNEW didn't own any records. So
he trotted out to the nearest Liberty Record Shop and bought five of
them, all by Clyde McCoy. He also launched his plan, which basically
was to demonstrate that records were the future of radio.
Block, A New York kid who was born to sell, had started his career
peddling razor blades and potato peelers off a sound truck on Broadway.
By the early 1930s, he had moved to the West Coast, where he got his
first radio job with a two-bit outfit in Tijuana and then worked his
way up to Los Angeles. One of the big shots in L.A. then was Al Jarvis
of KFWB, who played records regularly and around 1932 began calling
part of his show "The World's Biggest Make-Believe Ballroom." He would
play several records in a row by the same artist while painting a
picture for his listeners of this music wafting over a sparkling dance
floor.
Now, three years later, Block envisioned crafting his WNEW show on the
same model, and that was fine with Judis. The problem was the sales
staff, which told him no sponsor would buy time for a program of
prerecorded music. So Block went out and found his own sponsor: the
makers of Retardo pills, a harmless if useless weight loss gimmick that
sold for $1 a box. "Ladies," Block would purr into the microphone, "be
fair to your husband by taking the reducing pill."
A week later Block and WNEW claimed Retardo had received 3,750
responses, and soon enough there was little doubt the show was a hit.
Within a few years, "The Make-Believe Ballroom" commanded a remarkable
25% of the radio audience. Block became friends with stars like Glenn
Miller, who needed him to play their records, and for his sponsors he
claimed to have invented two of the most popular cigarette slogans
ever: "ABC: Always Buy Chesterfield" and "LS/MFT," for "Lucky Strike
Means Fine Tobacco."
The first theme of "Make-Believe Ballroom," naturally, was a Clyde
McCoy number, "Sugar Blues." That was bumped by Charlie Barnett's
"Make-Believe Ballroom," which in turn yielded to Miller's "It's
Make-Believe Ballroom Time." Block co-wrote the lyrics to that one and,
after Miller was killed in a plane crash in December 1944, Block
announced that "Make-Believe Ballroom Time" would remain the theme
forever.
"Make-Believe Ballroom" went into national syndication in 1940, and by
the end of World War II, Martin Block was making $22,000 a week. Then,
in August 1946, KFWB announced that Block was coming west to take over
the show there. Almost a year of headlines later, in June 1947, he did.
And he promptly tripped over his shoelaces.
Angelenos considered him an obnoxious, arrogant, know-it-all New Yorker
and tuned him out by the millions. By the fall of '48 he was ready to
return to New York, to take advantage of the new television
opportunities. He tried to. But he was not a TV guy, and soon he was
back at WNEW. In 1954, he jumped to ABC radio and, when the tidal wave
of rock 'n' roll crashed onto the shore, he jumped to WOR, where he did
weekend shows until his death in 1967. WNEW continued the "Make-Believe
Ballroom" with a string of other hosts. Descendant programs are heard
to this day.
While Martin Block may have felt his real calling was to sell diet
pills and Edwin cigars, many radio people feel he was to radio what
Bing Crosby was to recording: the first to introduce an intimate,
personal style rather than a disembodied voice of authority.
Whatever his legacy, the Make-Believe Ballroom was the best dance value
in town.
[End Quote]