To feed the public hunger for new pop names, U.S. record makers flail the musical undergrowth like beaters at a princely pheasant shoot, while fledgling pop singers break cover from behind lunch stands and dime-store counters, flutter out of laundry trucks and prizefighting rings. With luck, adroit promotion and an occasional touch of talent, some of the captured quarry end up making the kind of noises that set cash registers ajingle.
Columbia Records, no slouch at thicket-hunting, bagged its latest prize in its own doorway. Barbara Eichbauer, 23, is a statuesque suburbanite who...