There are three independent recording companies in the U. S. Between them— RCA Victor, Decca, and American Record Co. (the Brunswick-Columbia group)— they put out eight different labels at prices from $2 to 25¢ a disc. Last week this comfortable industrial balance was altered as an independent producer prepared to bring two more labels into U. S. music shops. Irving Mills, music publisher, band manager and a power in Tin Pan Alley, was getting ready to offer the trade his Master Records (75¢) and Variety Records (35¢). American Record Co. was furnishing the technical facilities and distribution for the expected 75 titles a month of Mr. Mills's recordings.
More remarkable than the fact that a music publisher and band impresario had thus set up an ideal outlet for his melodies and minstrels was the fact that Mr. Mills has cornered enough talent and is enough of a power in the popular music industry to make it worth American Record's while to deal with him as an independent producer. Last year Irving Mills turned down $750,000 from Twentieth Century-Fox for the properties of Mills Music, Inc., which owns the world's largest collection of copyrighted popular tunes. On the books of Mills Artists, Inc., are such dance orchestras as those led by Paul Whiteman, Edward Kennedy ("Duke") Ellington, Cabell ("Cab") Calloway, Jack Denny. Mills bands and Mills music have long been a mainstay of American Record affiliates. Last January, in Hollywood, Mr. Mills began making his own records. Decca put out a feeler for Mills and his songs and artists, but before anything could be done, American had given Mr. Mills a new deal whereby he was to function as managing director of his own labels under American's wing.
The career of cigar-smoking, 42-year-old Irving Mills began on Manhattan's East Side. As a youth he was a page at the vaudevillians' Friars Club, of which he is now a member. Young Irving got into song-plugging, went on into shoestring music publishing with his brother Jack.
Fortunately their second song was Mr. Gallagher & Mr. She an, which sold 2,000,000 copies, 500,000 records. At the Club Kentucky, Mills heard Duke Ellington idly improvising, at once signed the Negro pianist to a contract on the back of a menu.
So began Mills Artists, now the largest and most profitable string of talent man aged by one man. Mr. Mills's "piece" of Negroes Ellington and Calloway is 50% and 33% respectively. From white per formers, Manager Mills usually gets 10% and 15% of their earnings.
Last week American Records celebrated the opening of Master Records with a party at which Bandleaders Hal Kemp and Paul Ash, Vocalists Baby Rose Marie, Dolly Dawn and Pinky Tomlin were due to appear. Mr. Mills does not permit such relaxations, nor the luxuries of his fantastic suites of offices, to divert his eye from the verities of Broadway. When his son Sidney, breaking in with Mills Music, called up to get Calloway to play a tune he was promoting, Mr. Mills had him turned down cold "to convince him that song-plugging is a tough racket."