Ah the good old days!

[Donna Halper <dlh@donnahalper.com>]

I was just reading an article in an old issue of the jazz magazine 
Downbeat, from September of 1950, wherein the well known song-writer Johnny 
Mercer, complained that he could not get any of his records played on LA 
radio unless he paid the disc jockeys... in fact, he told the reporter, the 
jocks were quite blatant about what it would cost to get a certain amount 
of spins on their shows... amusing, when you consider all the huffing and 
puffing a decade later about the evils of rock and roll and the payola 
scandal.  Looks like even in the days before rock, the same problems 
persisted...