TOP TUNES FROM THE ZB's

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 384, 1 November 1946, Page 16

TOP TUNES FROM THE ZB's

Compiling the "Hit Parade"

ISTENERS to whom music is E at its best only when it induces rhythmical foot-tap-ping, and tickles the ear with its novelty, may have half an hour of their favourite stimulus from any of the ZB stations by tuning in to the Hit Parade session at 8.0 p.m. every Tuesday. For their benefit, S. W. Vause, a member of the programme staff of the Commercial Division of the NZBS, listens in regularly on shortwave to the

Irving Berlin’s "Doing What Comes Naturally" ("na‘churly" for the sake of the metre), "Sioux City Sue," and "South America, Take it Away," a musical satire about rhumbas, congas and other LatinAmerican dance conceits. Many of the songs come from highly successful stage shows and some are sung by performers whose names are household words to the request sessions’ "Blue Eyes,’ of Grey Lynn, and the "Brown Eyes," of Invercargill. Crosby, Sinatra, Dinah Shore, Kate Smith, with, of course, the Andrews Sisters not far away, figure

American "Hit Parade’ for tunes currently popular in the United States. From what he hears, from his experience of dance music, and from intuition, he selects what he thinks will suit the New Zealand ZB Hit Parade. He told us the other day, when The Listener was invited to hear some of the hits of the moment, that within the limits of public fickleness the compiler of a programme of this type can gauge, fairly accurately, what will appeal to New Zealand listeners. He knows, through his shortwave listening and an information service by air-mail, what tunes enlivening London and New York are likely to appeal to New Zealanders and increase the repertoire of those who whistle while they work. The result of all this is that the ZB stations are frequently able to present their audiences with tunes which attained the status of hits only 48 hours or so before, in America or the British Isles. But it does not necessarily follow that because a recording is popular overseas it will qualify for inclusion in the New Zealand Hit Parade. Some of the songs may be dropped for various reasons. Some may have words ut‘erly meaning- less to New Zealanders, or else be capable of appreciation only by those who like swing in its most extreme form. These Are "Problems" The songs we heard, and which are expected to become popular here, were prominently in the American "Hit Parade" which seems to believe in

variety in type of song, if not in treatment. A song’s popularity might last from one to 20 weeks. Some quickly fall by. the wayside, while others are rearranged and turned out in new guises. Though the ZB Hit Parade has been in the programmes for some time, it is only recently that New Zealand listeners have been invited to give their impressions. So,far replies have come from many parts of the country, indicating that the session has a large audience outside as well as in the cities. England, as well as America, is drawn on for the nucleus of the session, for one song included recently for presentation was "Money is the Root of All Evil," now being made popular here by many returned soldiers who heard Tessie O’Shea sing it in the London stage show High Time.