Radio: Creative Sounds

It was an ad man’s idea. Why not have singing commercials set to really good music? Before the ad man could say J. Walter Thompson, he had consulted promising young composer and Guggenheim Fellow Gail Kubik (best known for his score of the Air Force film Memphis Belle), and read him a little soap-flakes jingle that begins by asking: Any runs today, stocking runs today?

Composer Kubik caught fire at once, dashed off (in less than an hour) a melodic variation on a Creole fishmonger’s call. J. Walter Thompson was delighted. Cried Composer Kubik: “By failing to write for radio and the films, serious composers are depriving the people of creative sounds and themselves of town and country houses.”