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History

Sheet music plugging

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a song plugger was a vocalist or piano player employed in the early 20th century by department stores, music stores and song publishers to promote and help sell new sheet music. Prior to high-quality recorded music on phonograph records, sheet music sales were the sole measurement of a song's popularity. Music publisher Frank Harding has been credited with innovating the sales method.¹ Typically, the pianist sat on the mezzanine level of a store. When patrons wanted to hear the music before buying, a clerk would send the music up to the demonstrator to be played.²

Although the terms are often used interchangeably, those who worked in department and music stores were most often known as "song demonstrators", while those who worked directly for music publishers were called "song pluggers."

Notable musicians and composers who had worked as song pluggers included George Gershwin,³⁴ Ron Roker, Jerome Kern,⁵ Irving Berlin,⁶ Lil Hardin Armstrong,⁷ Irving Mills,⁸ and Cole Porter.⁹ Film executive Harry Cohn had also been a song plugger.¹⁰

Rise of recorded music

Later,[when?] the term was used to describe individuals who would pitch new music to performers, with The New York Times describing such examples as Freddy Bienstock performing a job in which he was "pitching new material to bandleaders and singers".¹¹ In 1952, Life writer Ernest Havemann noted the following:

There are about 600 song-pluggers in the U.S.; they have their own union; they are powerful enough to bar all outsiders; and they command fees up to $35,000 a year [worth $414,430 today] plus unlimited expense accounts. Their job is to persuade the record companies to use songs, put out by their publishing houses, and the radio station disk jockeys to play the records."¹²

Modern day usage

Song pluggers remain a part of the music industry, serving a similar function to a professional manager by promoting new music to recording artists and record labels.¹³¹⁴ They are often hired on retainer, and can work for a record label or operate independently.¹⁵¹⁶

Bibliography

• Austin, Dave; Peterik, Jim; Lynn, Cathy (2010). Songwriting For Dummies. For Dummies. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-470-89041-7.
• Field, Shelly (2010). Career Opportunities in the Music Industry. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8160-7801-1 – via Google Books.
• Heldt, Guido (2013). Music and Levels of Narration in Film. Intellect Books. p. 147. ISBN 978-1-84150-625-8.
• Karp, Jonathan (2018). "The Roots of Jewish Concentration in the American Popular Music Business, 1890–1945". In Ross, Steven J.; Diner, Hasia R.; Ansell, Lisa (eds.). Doing Business in America: A Jewish History. The Jewish Role in American Life: An Annual Review. Purdue University Press. pp. 123–144. doi:10.2307/j.ctvh9w101. ISBN 978-1-55753-836-9. JSTOR j.ctvh9w101. Retrieved December 1, 2024.
• Spring, Katherine (2013). Saying It With Songs: Popular Music and the Coming of Sound to Hollywood Cinema. OUP USA. ISBN 978-0-19-984222-3 – via Google Books.
• Thomas, Bob (1967). King Cohn: The Life and Times of Harry Cohn. G. P. Putnam's Sons. ISBN 978-1893224070 – via Internet Archive.

Further reading

• Player piano

References

1. "Popular Music". Museum of Making Music. Archived from the original on July 30, 2014. Retrieved November 21, 2024. https://web.archive.org/web/20140730205215/http://www.museumofmakingmusic.org/gallery1/popularmusic ↩

2. Kindersley, Dorling (2013). Music: The Definitive Visual History. DK. p. 230. ISBN 978-1465414366. 978-1465414366 ↩

3. "Popular Music". Museum of Making Music. Archived from the original on July 30, 2014. Retrieved November 21, 2024. https://web.archive.org/web/20140730205215/http://www.museumofmakingmusic.org/gallery1/popularmusic ↩

4. "George Gershwin Biography". ComposerFan (Blog). Archived from the original on May 1, 2012. Retrieved November 21, 2024. https://web.archive.org/web/20120501033539/http://www.gershwinfan.com/George.html ↩

5. Byrnside, Ronald; Lamb, Andrew. "Kern, Jerome (David)" Archived May 31, 2020, at the Wayback Machine. Grove Music Online. /wiki/Andrew_Lamb_(writer) ↩

6. "Popular Music". Museum of Making Music. Archived from the original on July 30, 2014. Retrieved November 21, 2024. https://web.archive.org/web/20140730205215/http://www.museumofmakingmusic.org/gallery1/popularmusic ↩

7. Terkel, Studs (2005). And They All Sang: Adventures of an Eclectic Disc Jockey. The New Press. pp. 140–141. ISBN 9781595580030. 9781595580030 ↩

8. Karp 2018, p. 135. - Karp, Jonathan (2018). "The Roots of Jewish Concentration in the American Popular Music Business, 1890–1945". In Ross, Steven J.; Diner, Hasia R.; Ansell, Lisa (eds.). Doing Business in America: A Jewish History. The Jewish Role in American Life: An Annual Review. Purdue University Press. pp. 123–144. doi:10.2307/j.ctvh9w101. ISBN 978-1-55753-836-9. JSTOR j.ctvh9w101. Retrieved December 1, 2024. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvh9w101.9 ↩

9. Heldt 2013, p. 147. - Heldt, Guido (2013). Music and Levels of Narration in Film. Intellect Books. p. 147. ISBN 978-1-84150-625-8. https://archive.org/details/oapen-20.500.12657-31721/page/147/mode/1up ↩

10. Thomas 1967, p. 96. - Thomas, Bob (1967). King Cohn: The Life and Times of Harry Cohn. G. P. Putnam's Sons. ISBN 978-1893224070 – via Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/kingcohnlifetime00thom ↩

11. Sisario, Ben (September 24, 2009). "Freddy Bienstock, Who Published Elvis Presley Hits, Dies at 86". The New York Times. p. A39. Archived from the original on December 9, 2023. Retrieved November 21, 2024. /wiki/Ben_Sisario ↩

12. Ernest Havemann (December 8, 1952). "The Fine Art of the Hit Tune". Life. Vol. 33, no. 23. p. 168. https://books.google.com/books?id=tVIEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA168 ↩

13. "Song Plugger". Berklee College of Music. Retrieved December 1, 2024. https://www.berklee.edu/careers/roles/song-plugger ↩

14. Field 2010, pp. 106–107. - Field, Shelly (2010). Career Opportunities in the Music Industry. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8160-7801-1 – via Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=dJOg4ddhJXMC ↩

15. Price, Deborah Evans (May 30, 1998). "Songpluggers: The Unsung Heroes". Billboard. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. p. 38. https://books.google.com/books?id=fQ4EAAAAMBAJ&q=%2522Song%2520plugger%2522&pg=PA38 ↩

16. Austin, Peterik & Lynn 2010, Putting a song plugger to work. - Austin, Dave; Peterik, Jim; Lynn, Cathy (2010). Songwriting For Dummies. For Dummies. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-470-89041-7. https://books.google.com/books?id=IMdu3MS74V0C ↩