The Call for Music Radio Program

Background

Philip Morris and Company was one of the most prolific sponsors of Radio throughout the Golden Age, bankrolling virtually every Radio genre heard during the era:

• 1934 The Leo Reisman Orchestra
• 1935 Johnny [Roventini] and The Foursome
• 1938 The Perfect Crime
• 1938 What's My Name?
• 1939 Breezin' Along
• 1939 Guess Where
• 1939 Johnny [Roventini] Presents
• 1939 Name Three
• 1939 Where Are We?
• 1940 Crime Doctor
• 1941 Great Moments from Great Plays
• 1941 Philip Morris Playhouse
• 1942 Author's Playhouse
• 1942 Purple Heart
• 1942 The Philip Morris Program
• 1944 It Pays to Be Ignorant
• 1945 Talent Theater
• 1946 Heart's Desire
• 1946 The Johnny Desmond Follies
• 1947 At Home with The Berles
• 1947 Horace Heidt's Youth Opportunity Program
• 1947 Kate Smith Sings
• 1948 Call for Music
• 1948 Everybody Wins
• 1948 Philip Morris Playhouse
• 1948 The Dinah Shore Show
• 1948 The Mel Torme Show
• 1948 This Is Your Life
• 1949 Against The Storm
• 1949 Casey, Crime Photographer
• 1949 Hogan's Daughter
• 1949 Ladies, Be Seated
• 1949 One Man's Opinion
• 1950 Candid Microphone
• 1950 Truth Or Consequences
• 1951 Philip Morris Playhouse on Broadway
• 1951 The Bickersons
• 1951 The Strange Romance of Evelyn Winters
• 1952 My Little Margie
• 1952 What's My Line?
• The Eddie Cantor Show Business Show

Cigarette advertising played a major role in Radio of the 1930s to 1950s. One of the Advertising Industry's most lucrative sectors, the Ad agencies of the era ruthlessly competed with each other for Tobacco Industry accounts. Given the highly addictive nature of tobacco products of any kind, the Tobacco Industry was one of the United States Economy's most recession-proof, inflation-proof, and depression-proof industries. And indeed, the tobacco industry of the era routinely poured a significant amount of its profits into both Print and Radio advertising throughout the period. The industry also ensured that tobacco products were routinely employed in all manner of Film productions of the 20th Century.

After the Golden Age of Radio had come and gone, Philip Morris acquired the Miller Brewing Company in 1970, General Foods in 1985 and Kraft Foods in 1988. One might well argue that Philip Morris, U.S.A. inherited the legacy for a lion's share of the most important sponsorships throughout the Golden Age of Radio--Philip Morris, Kraft Foods, and General Foods having sponsored over 300 popular Radio programs of the era. In 2003, the Philip Morris companies changed their name to the Altria Group.

But thoughout both World War I and World War II, the tobacco industries routinely shipped millions of free cartons and pouches of tobacco products to the G.I.s overeas on every fighting front--the better to ensure that overseas G.I's wouldn't be forced by War to abandon their smoking addictions. And also to ensure that American tobacco products made even more significant inroads into the occupied countries on the fighting fronts. The Tobacco Industry was equally generous to the G.I.s during the Korean Conflict and the Vietnam Conflict. And in fact, it's been estimated that three times as many of the G.I.s of the era ultimately died of tobacco-related illnesses than the entire estimated 292,000 fatal American servicemen casualties of World War II.

Of course as history has revealed, Tobacco Advertising was also one of the era's most deceptive and misleading, routinely citing the health 'advantages' of a particular tobacco brand over its competitors. The more naked and bald-faced tobacco campaigns of the era routinely employed doctors and nurses to endorse the health efficacy of a particular brand's tobacco products. And quite naturally, another huge portion of the Tobacco Industry's profits were plowed back into influence peddling and lobbying against any form of regulation of tobacco products of the era--a practice that continued well into the 1990s.

Given the ruthlessly competitive and morally bereft nature of the Tobacco Industry of the era, it's no wonder that that same ruthless competition greatly influenced the Radio programming of the era. Indeed, to this day, most advertising historians and economists continue to cite the Tobacco Industry's influence peddling of the 20th Century to be the template from which most other deceptive corporate advertising practices achieved such illogical--and counter intuitive--success throughout the 20th Century.

Dinah Shore's rising star

While steadily increasing her popularity with one hit record after another, Dinah Shore got her first major boost from Eddie Cantor and his Time To Smile program between 1940 and 1942 and with frequent appearances on the long-running Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street with Paul LaValle during the same period. She'd also appeared over The Revuers during the same period while getting yet another boost from Xavier Cugat during 1940.

By 1941 Dinah Shore embarked on a long-running series of her own programs over three different networks and for six different major sponsors:

• 1941 Songs By Dinah Shore for Bristol Myers' Sal Hepatica and Minit-Rub
• 1942 In Person: Dinah Shore for Bristol Myers' Mum Deodorant
• 1943 The Dinah Shore Program for Birds Eye Frosted Foods
• 1944 Birds Eye Open House Starring Dinah Shore
• 1946 The Ford Show for Ford Motor Corporation
• 1948 Call For Music for Philip Morris
• 1954 The Dinah Shore Show for Chevrolet

Throughout the entire period of headlining her own starring vehicles over both Radio and Television, Dinah Shore continued to make hundreds of guest appearances on other programs as well as performing in hundreds of AFRS and AFRTS programs of the 1940s and 1950s. And indeed her frequent appearances before military audiences both stateside and overseas endeared her to a generation of G.I.s and their families. Dinah Shore continued to be a favorite of G.I.s. for the remainder of Dinah Shore's life.

Philip Morris teams Dinah Shore and Harry James over CBS

"Call for Philip Morris" had been the signature Radio tag for Philip Morris for going on fourteen years by 1948. 'Sung' by famous little person Johnny Roventini and his several 'stand-ins' over the years, it was a natural extension to refer to their new Dinah Shore, Harry James and Johnny Mercer vehicle as "Call for Music." And indeed the pairing of jazz vocalist sensation Dinah Shore with Harry James and his Orchestra would seem to have been an equally natural hit premise. The Billboard thought so as well, almost weekly hyping the proposed series from its first teaser in mid-January 1948. By the time Call for Music actually premiered the two proposed leads were augmented by legendary Tin Pan Alley songwriter Johnny Mercer.

The concept for the series was something of a novelty as well. Drawing upon the preeminence of each of the co-stars in their respective entertainment fields, Dinah Shore represented the popular songs of the era, Harry James represented Big Band music of the era, and Johnny Mercer represented the Tin Pan Alley and Broadway songwriting of the era. Call for Music was specifically targeted to the 18-25 demographic of the era and Lawrence and Lee's [Jerry Lawrence and Robert Lee] Call for Music's scripts were heavily weighted with the popular 'jive talk' of the era, an aspect that apparently disturbed noted Radio critic John Crosby to no end. Here's a sample from the March 22, 1948 edition of Oakland Tribune:

Series Derivatives:

Notes on Provenances:

The most helpful provenances were the log of the RadioGOLDINdex and newspaper listings.

What you see here, is what you get. Complete transparency. We have no 'credentials' whatsoever--in any way, shape, or form--in the 'otr community'--none. But here's how we did it--for better or worse. Here's how you can build on it yourselves--hopefully for the better. Here are the breadcrumbs--just follow the trail a bit further if you wish. No hobbled downloads. No misdirection. No posturing about our 'credentials.' No misrepresentations. No strings attached. We point you in the right direction and you're free to expand on it, extend it, use it however it best advances your efforts.

We ask one thing and one thing only--if you employ what we publish, attribute it, before we cite you on it.

We continue to provide honest research into these wonderful Golden Age Radio programs simply because we love to do it. If you feel that we've provided you with useful information or saved you some valuable time regarding this log--and you'd like to help us even further--you can help us keep going. Please consider a small donation here:

We don't pronounce our Golden Age Radio research as 'certified' anything. By the very definition, research is imperfect. We simply tell the truth. As is our continuing practice, we provide our fully provenanced research results--to the extent possible--right here on the page, for any of our peers to review--or refute--as the case may be. If you take issue with any of our findings, you're welcome to cite any better verifiable source(s) and we'll immediately review them and update our findings accordingly. As more verifiable provenances surface, we'll continue to update the following series log, as appropriate.

All rights reserved by their respective sources. Article, log, and independent research results copyright 2011 The Digital Deli Online--all rights reserved. Any failure to attribute the results of this copywritten work will be rigorously pursued.

[Date, title, and episode column annotations in red refer to either details we have yet to fully provenance or other unverifiable information as of this writing. Red highlights in the text of the 'Notes' columns refer to information upon which we relied in citing dates, date or time changes, or titles.]