The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-12-22

much revenue to the firm. Not that she hadn't been appreciated, how. ever, for she boasts the only ufilifns tied expense account ifl c business where expense money cascades to surprising figures.
 Forster found his eastern repre-. sentative was q former opera sing CT with . repertoire of 20 operas. He found her dark, thirtysigh and quite attractive. Well dressed, too, with c carefully cultivated, direct manner of speaking. This ileuter approach is important, music men being ifas questionable fellows.
 Into Bigger Offices
 Whatever it was that Forster said Miss Saunders came back well sat- isfied and immediately rented new and larger offices. Then she went to work on her new song aBSigfis nent, "In The Middle Of Q Dance" which, naturally, she describes aS a hit.
 Across c desk filtered with flight club bills I asked her what work" meant to c Song plugger.
 Lots of walking and talking" she said. "The theory of song plugging Is that the more bands and Tccords ing companies and radio stations play c tune, the more people will hear 1t and the more copies 1t will sell. Roughly that's tic way t works out.
 For instance fake o. Johnny O. A big hit in 1917 and 1918. By all rights it ought to nave been con. igdeTed dead in i040 but our firm decided Bonnie Baker had the kind Of voice ideally suited to the tune and we yanked 1t from the archives. It was played for Orria Tucker who liked t and other bands followed his lead. As c result tho revived number sold 3o0,oO0 copies.
 We have Q song ifl our catalogue that has made Us more than 8i,- 000,000. It's the Missouri Waltz an old Indian air picked up by e travelling musician. Every now and then the tune gets to going around and it's our job to boost it along when that happens. Plugging, 50 to speak"
 The Road to Tin Pan Alley
 How does an opera singer travel the road to Tin Pan Alley which t might be well to state here, iS not really an alley but three or four office buildings in which most mu- sic firms have headquarteFs.
 Roxy" Miss Saunders said. twas the connecting link. was in Europe singing in the Volksoper in Vienna where ! studied when Roxy (the late S. |. RothafeD came through. He asked me if I wanted to sing for him in the United States and I acc cep.ed.
 My switch to popular stuff was gradual from then on and it was really soul searching for me to do anything less than, say, Puccini. Af- ter awhile I got g radio program and was doing fairly well until l suffered a serious financial setback.
 After that I needed an augment ed source of income. Because I was a singer I knew most of the people who counted in music and 1t was only step from that to plugging when l finally convinced music executives that a woman could com- pete fin the racket. They used to say why do you want to knock your self out working against solid male competition?'"
 Miss Saunders gets into the of- flee about 10:30 a. m. and starts around to the night clubs at 2 p. m. She winds up a busy day and night at 3 or 4 a. m. and makes the long trip to her suburban home. Four or five hours sleep is all she gets. She attributes her success to 8 firm separation of her business and social lives. She is not married.