Fred Waring, Inc.

Competing with Amos 'n' Andy on the radio is like taking on Joe Louis. CBS tried it for eleven years, finally coaxed the pair over to its own corner of the air, last April. Since then that 15-minute early evening spot has been NBC's headache.

This week NBC hoped it had hit upon the right medicine--Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians, a 70-man band of glittering trumpetry, up-to-date stomp and freestyle, everybody-sing chorusing. Main reason that Fred Waring is considered a likely antidote to Amos 'n' Andy is that his orchestra has always played to the whole crowd, has never gone too hot or too sweet for catholic tastes. Says Fred: "If anything looks good, I use it."

Footing the bills for the Waring five-a-week shows (which started Monday night under a two-year contract) is the Liggett & Myers Tobacco Co. (Chesterfield). Annual cost: some $2,500,000. Of this whopping sum, the air time over 82 NBC stations will cost $37,000 a week, and the Warings will get the rest, $12,000 a week.

This is just 1,000 times what the first Waring orchestra drew down for its first engagement, in Tyrone, Pa., 21 years ago. Fred, 18, was then in Penn State, studying architecture and engineering. His younger brother Tom and the boy next door, a dark, antic trap-drummer named Poley McClintock, had a two-piece piano & drums outfit that used to pick up occasional pin money playing for Victory dances, etc. They invited Fred, a violinist who preferred the banjo to join in. Another banjoist, Fred Buck, joined too. Four-strong, they barnstormed Pennsylvania's busy mining district, picked up a sax player or so, a trumpeter, a trombonist, soon had ten players. Soon the burgeoning Pennsylvanians were on the road, on the air, in the movies for good and plenty. Their biggest year was 1936, when they were collecting $13,600 weekly for Ford broadcasts, as much and more weekly for theatre work.

Nowadays the bustling Waring organization occupies a full floor on Broadway, where Fred holds sway like a master of ceremonies. Only other active member of the original four is Poley McClintock, who more than any other member has made the Waring band memorable, by his froggy-voiced interpolations. Fred Buck is dead. Tom Waring is still considered one of the gang but spends most of his time practicing for a debut as a concert baritone. Fred directs production, helps write continuity, coaches the gang in rehearsal ("come lively," "stay with me," "give it rapture!"), plays golf in the 705 as his main relaxation.

At 39, Fred Waring is trim, clear-blue-eyed, looks nearer 30. In his course as a musical businessman he has picked up two subsidiaries, Words & Music Inc., and a $250,000 venture in an electric drink and food mixer he thought up two years ago. The Waring mixer in its first year and a half sold 60,000, is still going strong.

A prime favorite with song pluggers, the Waring band has made many tunes go strong, too (Collegiate, In My Gondola, Annie Doesn't Live Here Any More, etc.). The pluggers used to clutter up Fred's Broadway office, but now Fred has a different arrangement. He meets them once a week for lunch in a Broadway Automat cafeteria, talks over their wares, matches them for the check.

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