"gbfmif" wrote in message
...

HI--Did radio stations play records before the settlement with the
musicians' union (in, I think, 1947)? This is part of the history I
just don't know, but I think that Johnny Mercer was one of the major
proponents for having recordings played on the radio, is this true?

Recordings were played as a regular staple by the mid 1930s. As an example,
Arthur Godfrey was the wake-up (morning) man on WJSV (now WTOP) during those
years. He signed the transmitter on, took the readings, signed the log, etc.

In many cases these were 16-inch vinyl transcriptions from libraries rented
to stations. They didn't have the surface noise problems on shellac disks.
They were often of higher audio quality, especially the "World Broadcasting
Corp" ones. They were sort of jumbo LPs. with 4 or 5 cuts on a side.

There was the day that Benny Goodman's band cut 50 tunes for World (IIRC).
The members got $50 each for their efforts. Translated into today's dollars
that would be like $800 or $1000 - a respectable sum.

Remember that there were only about 750 US radio stations in 1940, and a
large percentage were on the networks. Networks didn't play records.

Stations playing the latest hit 78-rpm records appeared by 1940 or earlier.

In 1940 a major city like Washington,DC, had the four network stations and
two independents. The independents were record-based. WWDC was very much a
latest pop hit station.

Richmond, VA, had only 3 radio stations during WW2. They were on the 3 major
networks. There would be a morning DJ, and also one during part of the
afternoon. The (NBC) station I know most about never played records - only
transcriptions.


And Johnny Mercer was a latecomer. Wasn't he a co-founder of Capitol
Records, and thus would benefit from their products getting broadcast
exposure. Capitol had their own transcription service/library, which
probably included everything from their 78-rpm releases.