I'm a Pied Piper!

stay awake stan
I’m a Pied Piper!
1959

“C'mon babe...follow me...I’m the Pied Piper...don’t ya see...and I’ll show you where it’s at!!! 

Top 40 song by Chrispen St. Peter’s in the 50’s...stupidly NOT listed in Billboard's books in your local library...(cause Billboard sucked in the fifties and so still sucks today!)

There is a book by Wes Smith about early days of rock and roll and especially the D.J.’s who played an important part in it.

I’m in the book...pages 228-229.

Quote:  “Perhaps more amazing in the deejay marathon stunt madness...was the feat of deejay Stan Major who staged an eight-and one-half-day “Stay Awake Marathon” that had “absolutely no repercussions of any kind, physically or mentally after 210 hours with no sleep.”  Doctors said, in fact,  that he was actually in better physical condition than before the marathon started.

(Stan’s note: that can be attributed to Sharon...the “silk panty girl” (see earlier post).

And then the author shows his lack of brilliance saying this stupidity: 

“this incredible achievement is all the more impressive

when it is noted that Major, who later moved on to WJJD Chicago ,performed the feat while working at a station in Peoria, Illinois.”  

(say what???)

Then the guy never even mentions my really colossal feat of making “This Time” by Troy Shondell one of the top records in the country by simply sending about a dozen of my friends in the business a copy and asking them to play it as a test to see if we could make this piece of crap a legitimate hit.  and we did!

Also...if he had asked me (I never talked to the author) I would have told him about my personally reviving that gimmick record “I Put A Spell On You” by Screaming Jay Hawkins by playing it a few times each day on my show for a couple of weeks.

Oh well.

The book is by Wes Smith...”The Pied Pipers of Rock and Roll” published by Longstreet Press.

He devotes about 20 pages to WLS Chicago jock Dick Biondi and ONE page to Boston’s Arnie “woo woo” Ginsberg WMEX...who invented payola and cleaned up while it was still legal! 

Arnie made more hit records than Biondi ever did!

Another gage on whether the author knew what he was writing about was the lack of interest on his part about the valuable input of CASHBOX magazine.        “Cashbox” in the 50’s and 60’s was the BIBLE for all radio station personnel and personalities.  Nobody read Billboard which was considered a Hollywood gossip sheet.  But we lived by Cashbox and it’s red dot selection of new hit records.  Billboard rested in a lot of radio station bathrooms but Cashbox was on management's desk!  Need I say more?

This author hardly mentions Cashbox but there’s plenty said about the bathroom Billboard.

Nonetheless...it appears to be interesting reading...especially as I am in it!

End part 1...

...I’m a Pied Piper of rock & roll

stanmajor@aol.com