CAPITOL NEWS Herman Herd Revamped; Swears 'No More Bop’ Woody Herman grabbed his whisk broom and cleaned house again in January, as he does every few years, to shake up his orchestra and discard many of the ar- Life In America —The Amateur Songwriter jrangements he's been featuring the past three years. H. Allen Smith once wrote of the man who collected lint fry But No Return To Dixie Planned navels and managed to amass an enviable collection, which f |n Hollywood on a brief vacation, during which hiatus he and his hoarded and revered above his family, his house and his be; mentor, Abe Turchen, started hiring new faces for his herd, the P'P6, IMilwaukee-born clary and sax star admitted he was "through with Other mature folk who, otherwise, behave comparatively nojbop and everything connected with bop." mally risk limb and life in the pursuit of matchbook covers, fo| "W e are not going back to the o rig in a l D ixieland style Woody eign stamps and—it's deadly serious to them—crumpled cigt featured when he took over the old Isham Jones band in 1936,' bands found in pavement gutte [Turchen said, "but there will be no more of this so-called 'progres- But more eccentric than all these species of homo sapiens f sive' stuff th a t so fe w understand. the songwriters of America, particularly the simon pure who ha\ Woody, Capitol Part Company NAT COLE made discs in New never had hits. Firstly, they are indestructible. No rebuff damper "Woody will strive for a vastly more melodic orchestra, and there York recently with an apprecia­ their ambitions. Physically, they are, to a man, as hardy as Job will be more emphasis on dance tempos, too. The bop era never tive audience, June Hutton and Wayne in a celluloid foxhole. They are on the job 24 hours a do) did amount to much, except among a few immature adolescents Neal Hefti, the arranger. Later, waving their lyrics and their melodies at singers, bandleader! and a fa n a tical frin g e o f e x h ib itio n is ts ," Turchen went on. "We are the King bee-lined for California publishers and record company savants, constantly urging, de out to play good, musicianly dance music. You'll soon hear the for nitery, TV and radio work. manding and threatening that their efforts be performed. diffifference." His "Mona Lisa" was one of There's the beauty shop operator in Kansas who decepticeptive ^ (Capitol and Woody parted company in January, but the split 1950's biggest sellers. stacked a dozen or more of her ditties in gay Christmas gift boxe/bad nothing to do with the style change, beautifully bedecked in ribbon and holly, and dispatched ther off to anybody everybody—whom she thought might sing, pic or record them. Chicago Awaits And the man in Texas, who once a month for 35 years has sub mitted his On the Dusty Rusty Stagecoach to Heaven" maste1 piece to untold thousands of radio stations and record companies King Cole Trio One aged amateur repeatedly loads the mails with her song King Cole's combo, after a stay accompanied by a note—always the same note—that she is ties in California since Christmas, perately ill, and that the royalties received from her song wouls swings east, to Chicago, for a permit the operation which will save her fast-ebbing life. She week at the Regal Theater start­ used the system since 1919. ing Feb. 16. Then it's on to N ew The con men, lifers, second-story gents and snatch men if Jersey for a nitery engagement. America s prisons and ¡ails who turn out songs they are convinced N at's January run in Reno was should place from one to ten on next June's Hit Parade are legiojl cancelled because of floods and These men have time to write and rewrite, shape and reshapl his trio, instead, worked the Tif­ their tunes. And they exhibit considerable more patience thaJ fany Club in Los Angeles. their colleagues on the outside. Housewives? Let's not get into that phase. For every one wM brandishes a broom, two write songs. Washington Next Cole Porter? Frank Loesser? Johnny Mercer? Berlin? They're c bums. No talent. They've got "ins" with the big publishers. That'; For Peggy Lee what the amateurs say in their letters. And the record companies Peggy Lee, back in C alifornia are in cahoots and w ill somebody please advise this column hov after a brief appearance in the a cahoot functions?-with the professionals. The door is closet ill-fated American Legion show, to an unknown. It's a monopoly, that's what it is. "Red, White and Blue," which Well, we're gonna tell a secret. There is no monopoly, no CAPITAL AIRLINES, flying 450 flights a day in and out of 73 cities, folded in Chicago, will train out POLLY BERGEN has made two even a third-class cartel. It's just that the record company mer last month started an added service for its passengers—a complimen­ again for a week at the Capitol movies with Martin and Lewis actually sit down and carefully listen to songs. And if some o' tary copy of the Cap News to every traveler. Hostesses Hoekstra and Theater in W ashington, D. C., and will work with them this those aspiring, struggling writers would do that with their owr GNson distribute the mag, in this shot, to M ary Mayo, who is making starting Feb. 22. She's also due month in Florida. In private life, tunes, they'd never get a rejection. They w o u ld n 't dare sub-*^ast time as a singer on the Capitol label and who frequently takes to perform with her husband, m it 'em ! Polly, a singer, is the w ife of to the air for engagements. Some 5,000 copies are required by the Dave Barbour, at the N. Y. Wal­ srceen actor Jerome Courtland. airline every month. dorf-Astoria in March. ■T'Ä*ö|Bi PAGE 4 CAPITOL NE»CApiTOL NEWS PAGE 5 Leaves DeVol; Whiting Jaunt Helen O ’Connell Off; She W ill OutOnHerOwn Go East Later Blonde Helen O'Con­ (February Cover Girl) ALTHOUGH HE will continue to clef his "Surface nell, who recently Noise" column and contribute occasional news and Margaret Whiting's oft- emerged from a long retirement feature articles to its postponed personal ap­ The song, hiked up on the Hit ¡to work as featured vocalist with pearance run at the New York pages, Dave Dexter this Parade chgrts by Nat Cole's sleek Frank DeVol's dance band at the Capitol Theater with Frank De­ month is stepping aside version, was composed by the Hollywood Palladium, is going Vol's music and Jack Smith as as the editor of Capitol same team of Livingston and out on her own as a singing added attractions again has been Evans which previously scored shoved back. So Mag will remain News to concentrate on single. with "Buttons and Bows" and in Hollywood. finding and recording tal­ The Ohio finch banged her way "To Each His O w n ." , Busy With Army Dates back into popularity quickly at ent for Capitol Records, The Capitol engagement origi­ the Palladium, and w as regarded Inc. Moving in to supervise the Coast songwriters honored nally was scheduled for January, * as being partly responsible for m ag—w hich is now in its ninth Harry Tobias at the Hotel Roose­ but radio commitments on the year of publication—will be John velt. He wrote "Sweet and Love­ the hefty box-office m arks chalked west coast kept Maggie, DeVol (Bud) Freeman and Lou Schurrer. ly" and many another smash. up by DeVol's new "Music of the and Smith from shoving off for Freeman, a former Variety Century" crew. She is also in de­ the east. Then, in February, Smith writer, will boss the editorial end The 94-piece Israel Philhar­ mand for TV shows throughout landed a role in a film at War­ of the mag and Schurrer, until re­ monic orchestra, with Dr. Serge the Southern C a lifo rn ia area. ners and couldn't go. cently head of his own advertis­ Koussevitzky and Leonard Bern­ With major film factories pon­ Margaret, meanwhile, has con­ ing agency, will direct the art tinued her airshow with DeVol's stein alternating as conductors, dering the O'Connell pipes—and ON HER OWN . Helen O'Con­ side. Ray Polley continues as pro­ band and Smith (Dinah Shore is will perform at the Los Angeles oeauteous face—¡t seemed likely nell, who recently returned to duction head. Dexter, who started Shrine Auditorium March 3, 4, 5. featured on the other days of the lhat she would be testing within music as a vocalist with Frank Peggy Lee, Kay S tarr, N ellie The unit, on its first tour of Amer­ week) and also piled one army the next fe w weeks. She's no DeVol's ork, has left DeVol and Lutcher, Julia Lee and others on camp show atop another. Prob­ ica, will play 55 concerts in 40 will work as a single act. An Cap wax, and who with Glenn cities. novice—her scenes in "The Fleet's ably no other singer in the busi­ Ohioan, "Button Nose" will con­ E. Wallichs also was responsible ¡In" at Param ount and "I Dood ness has visited as m any m ilita ry tinue to record for Capitol.