Old School Jingle Companies

Inspired to start this thread by seeing the words “Pams, Inc.” at the top of this list of 1967 Moog Modular System purchasers:
http://www.moogarchives.com/modular.htm

I think they're still around, but JAM Creative Productions (whose founder previously worked for PAMS)

Thanks. Never really heard about either of those two before this week. The biggest one in my mind was always Pepper Tanner in Memphis. Some stories I always heard were about Rita Coolidge starting out there and maybe being on a related record label which Elvis associate Marty Lacker might have been associated with. Also think Marty Lacker produced a few jingles with Chips Moman at American Studios, which is one of the things that led to Elvis recording there.

Also thinking about the Ron Hicklin Singers who were based in L.A. They seemed to have sung every other T.V. theme for the good part of a decade or so but I believe they also sang commercials and radio ids.

TM Productions in Dallas is the one that springs to mind. I still own a copy of this promo LP. Side one introduces their product, but the second side is a radio play that’s super fun if you have inside knowledge of the politics of radio.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BciNvhrb2Kg

Thanks. In fact I’m still not sure where they recorded but this Ron Hicklin demo mentions TM Productions almost right off the bat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PUHOQ0AIDE

I’m gonna have to take off my rainbow shades!

Okay, the #onethread continues with that video making an outrageous, Purdie-level claim about The Monkees.

Here are their actual Monkees credits, I believe: https://monkees.coolcherrycream.com/people/ron-hicklin/musician

In addition to JAMS and TM Productions, the Ron Hicklin Wikipedia article mentions The Heller Corporation. I found some info here: https://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2006/10/heller_corporat.html

Lots of stuff on Pepper Tanner in various Memphis music books. Will try to distill some of it.

There was another jingle company based in New York called HEA, Herman Edel Associates.
http://www.crlf.de/ChuckBerry/blog/archives/246-Chuck-Berrys-Recording-Session-for-Dr-Pepper.html

Which was later owned by this woman, who wrote a book, which gets praise from both Randy Newman and Will Lee!
http://www.susanhamilton.com/bio/

Really just go to this page to start:
http://www.susanhamilton.com/about-the-book/

Before Herman Edel had his own company he worked at Music Makers with/for Mitch Leigh.

Who studied at Yale under Paul HIndemith and also wrote Man of La Mancha.

(Thank for the opportunity to create this crazy thread)

Who widow is some kind of big deal artist.

Whose

There was also a joint venture between Herman Edel and George Martin: https://www.soundonsound.com/music-business/air-edel-london

Susan Hamilton’s first husband was folk guitarist Walter Raim, whose stuff must be pretty deep crate-wise, as he has never been mentioned on this borad:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNOpT0HIPlA

Paul McCartney and Charlie Drayton’s dad Bernie are just two of the players in the story of the Dr. Pepper jingle.

Was coming at this from a different angle but all roads lead back and I relocated this video and reread the comments. It turns out Walter Raim wrote this famous piece of music while at Herman Edel, which Susan Hamilton and Bernard Drayton produced:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfksiAUfQ6M

I actually talked with some people at HEA (or maybe it was their successor/spinoff, 4/4 Productions) about working there doing clerical duty one summer in the mid-1980s, though it didn't work out. Besides Susan Hamilton (who I didn't realize had written a book - must read!), Bernie Drayton and Jake Holmes worked there. Jake Holmes and Randy Newman wrote the Dr. Pepper "Most Original Soft Drink" jingle that Chuck Berry sings (although I think Chuck improvised on this version enough to deserve a credit too). Jake also wrote (and sometimes sang) the "Be a Pepper" jingle that replaced it a few years later. Didn't know about the rejected McCartney jingle though; there's a pic on Susan's blog site of her and Bernie Drayton with George Martin, so the Beatles connection must go beyond just knowing Paul through Linda's dad.

#TBT @air_edel Studio in London, originally known as Audio International Recording Studios was renamed as AIR-Edel after it was acquired in a joint venture between Sir George Martin and Herman Edel in 1990. https://t.co/nU30tarPRo#AIREDEL #recordingstudio #musicproducer pic.twitter.com/3lfA6I5TLJ

— Sound On Sound (@soundonsoundmag) February 18, 2021

That year seems wrong though.

Founded 50 years ago by Sir George Martin & Herman Edel, we are a prolific force within the industry, working as an all-encompassing music services company for all forms of visual media, providing music representation, supervision, recording facilities, publishing & record labels

— Air-Edel Studios (@airedelstudios) March 26, 2020

Seems like the original owner of HEA Herman Edal flew to London to meet Sir George in October of 1969 to work on some jingles and discuss further plans and they opened Air-Edel in 1970..

Somewhere I have a cassette that HEA sent out to prospective clients (usually ad agencies, not directly to the companies whose products were advertised) of their best jingles up to that point. I was impressed with how many diverse styles they could pull off.

Interesting. Yeah, Ad agencies seem to always be a part of this. My friend Mr. Fine Wine was just reminding me of Roquel "Billy" Davis and his super-well-known jingle work:
https://medium.com/message/mad-men-and-the-coke-jingle-theory-4a5bf1fbaf02

I learned the name of the ad agency involved, McCann Erickson, but not the jingle company.

Who knows how many familiar jingles well-known session cats played on that we'll never know. The bass player on this Chuck Berry Dr. Pepper seems to be Bob Babbitt, for example.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgJfpexPfEc

Hamilton says in her book that in the run up Air-Edel George Martin would come to NYC where Edel had him follow her around to various studios and ad agencies to get the lay of the land. Later she had lunch with him in London and recorded at Air-Edel.

Run up to Air-Edel.

I have actually met the guy discussed in this article, he is super nice and sometimes tolerates my fan boy questions about his earlier days as a session man but I haven't asked him about the jingles, yet.
https://www.nytimes.com/1983/04/22/business/advertising-sammy-honors-winning-ad-music.html

This is a much longer article building on that one by the same guy: https://www.nytimes.com/1983/05/11/business/advertising-a-tuneful-shop-with-5-sammys.html

Herbie Hancock also had a relationship with HEA (not mentioned by name here though):
https://www.herbiehancock.com/album/the-prisoner/

During this time, Herbie began composing television commercials for a few agencies in town. He composed a jingle for Silva Thins cigarettes, and it was so beautiful, he wanted to record the song for his own album, but the agency didn’t give Blue Note permission. Herbie changed the title to “He Who Lives In Fear” and recorded it on The Prisoner session.

Oh yeah, Herbie blurbs the book too.

This might belong on another thread, but putting it here now, as kind of a pre-history: https://www.mixcloud.com/musicmankevin/a-soulful-conversation-with-al-gorgoni/

Miss it if you blink appearnance of Rusty Evans!

Also New Orleans funkmaster James Black.

And Allan Schwatzberg.

Guess last fifteen minutes relative to this thread.

Forgot to mention Rob Mounsey.

Wow, Herman Edel himself made it to 95 and only passed away last August. Still waiting for the Air-Edel tribute though.
https://www.air-edel.co.uk/herman-edel/
https://coloradosun.com/2021/08/17/former-aspen-mayor-herman-edel-dies-at-95/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q0SkTH1rnQ

^Susan Hamilton’s father, Roger. Her book is some kind of Redd catnip.

Here is some kind of jingletastic recreation of an oldtime AM radio station Mr. Fine Wine just sent me: https://wiwsradio.com/live365player.html

Also, keep thinking one day I want to do a full on thread about the old NYC recording studios, but that is kind of an ambitous, um, project I am not up to right now and this thread still needs some work anyway.

So John Pepper, who started Pepper-Tanner (maybe it was Pepper first, then Tanner), was also the owner of WDIA.

In the early to mid-1970s, the most chaotic years of recording in Memphis, the productions at Pepper-Tanner remained the most reliable and efficient session work in town. The Memphis Symphony Orchestra conveniently eliminated Wednesday nights from its rehearsal schedule to facilitate the weekly sessions at Tanner's Studio V. Jingles produced by the Pepper-Tanner staff were regularly heard all over the United States and Canada, representing major corporations such as Toyota and Sears and supplying an untold number of radio station identifications.

String Musicians in the Recording Studios of Memphis, Tennessee, by Roy Brewer.
Popular Music, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Apr., 2000), p. 212.

Old school jingle companies = original jinglists.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvfi8XtSSiE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHRGXvfSu3s
it's the best

http://www.crlf.de/ChuckBerry/blog/archives/246-Chuck-Berrys-Recording-Session-for-Dr-Pepper.html

Free association leads me to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSEdBNslGOk

Some stuff about Susan Hamilton’s other company, HB&B, seems like maybe it coexisted with HB&B: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1990-03-09-9001200114-story.html

Here's an LA Times article from the prior year: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-08-19-ca-484-story.html

Spamming the borad with news of my new discovery Linda November: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_November

Her husband Artie Schroek was also a jingle guy, as well as having some other interesting credits:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artie_Schroeck

Toni Wine and Linda November apparently both sang the Meow Mix Cat Food jingle, although I can't figure out whether together or separately. Would like to perhaps add or at least reference Toni's other jingle credits at same point.

Hadn't heard of Linda November, interesting career. That soprano part of hers in Sinatra's "The World We Knew (Over and Over)" is indelible, a hook in itself.

Thank you. Learning of Linda November has put a new cultural giant in my pantheon. What a legacy! Meow Mix, theme from The Devil in Miss Jones, the Mean Joe Green commercial, Tony Orlando's Knock Three Times, "Have it Your Way at Burger King ", the disco version of "Baby Face". This woman occupies a larger portion of my formative brain than Planet of the Apes, Steve Austin and the Beatles combined.

New York Magazine article

Link does not take you all the way there, but you can find it and click, I think.

Bonus points for photo of the Hit Women herself Susan Hamilton immediately above!

Aargh woman

Trying to drill down on some of the hits Linda November song on to confirm. It says she sang on Streisand's "Stoney End," (uncredited) but something else said those backing vocals were provided by Fanny(!). She is credited with singing on the Laura Nyro original though, along with Toni Wine again.
https://www.albumoftheyear.org/song/552361-stoney-end/

Heh, I have met two people that were on that session.

Best version of "Stoney End"