page_title: Martin Block
section_title: Career break: Make Believe Ballroom
hierarchical_section_title: Martin Block / Career / Career break: Make Believe Ballroom
caption_attribution_description: English: Publicity photo of Martin Block and musician Stan Kenton at the WNEW radio studio.
context_page_description: Martin Block was an American disc jockey. It is said that Walter Winchell invented the term "disk jockey" as a means of describing Block's radio work.
context_section_description: In 1934, Block went to work for WNEW at a salary of $20 per week.  In 1935, while listeners to New York's WNEW in New York (now information outlet WBBR) were awaiting developments in the Lindbergh kidnapping, Block built his audience by playing records between the Lindbergh news bulletins. This led to his Make Believe Ballroom, which began on February 3, 1935 with Block borrowing both the concept and the title from West Coast disc jockey Al Jarvis, creating the illusion that he was broadcasting from a ballroom with the nation’s top dance bands performing live. He bought some records from a local music shop for the program as the radio station had none.  Block purchased five Clyde McCoy records, selecting his "Sugar Blues" for the radio show's initial theme song.
  Because Block was told by the station's sales staff that nobody would sponsor a radio show playing music, he had to find himself a sponsor. Block lined up a producer of reducing pills called "Retardo". Within a week of sponsoring the program, the company had over 3,000 responses to the ads on Block's radio show.
  Block's style of announcing was considerably different than the usual manner of delivery at the time.  Instead of speaking in a voice loud enough to be heard in a theater, Block spoke in a normal voice, as if he was having a one-on-one conversation with a listener. When one of Block's sponsors offered a sale on refrigerators during a New York snowstorm, 109 people braved the elements for the bargain Block advertised; by 1941 potential sponsors for his show had to be put on a waiting list for availabilities.
  In 1936, Block and his "Ballroom" inadvertently came to the aid of a young man accused of being a pickpocket.  His alibi was that he was home at the time, listening to the show, describing how Guy Lombardo, who was to appear on Make Believe Ballroom, was unable to keep the engagement and sent a telegram, which was read on the air. His story was verified and all charges were dropped.  Two years later, current events unwittingly entered the "Make Believe" world with Louis Armstrong singer Midge Williams' renditions of two American popular songs in Japanese.  NBC received many telephone calls and telegrams protesting her performance from listeners who were irate over the recent Japanese invasion of China.
  Make Believe Ballroom was nationally syndicated in 1940. That same year, Block hosted what was billed as a "$20,000 Jam Session" on the show, featuring artists including both Dorsey brothers, Count Basie, Harry James, and Gene Krupa. The musicians improvised live for a half-hour. One segment of Ballroom was entitled "Saturday Night in Harlem". During this, Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and other jazz musicians' music was featured. Block and Make Believe Ballroom made the cover of Billboard magazine  in April, 1942.  During the 1942–44 musicians' strike (also known as the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) recording ban), he was able to obtain new records with full orchestral backing for his program by having friends in England send him UK recordings, as the ban applied to the United States only.
  When Spike Jones and his City Slickers returned from entertaining the troops in 1944, the New York hotel room shortage meant the musicians had nowhere to sleep.  Jones telephoned Martin Block, who went on the air with the news.  WNEW was flooded with listener calls offering to accommodate Jones and his band.
  In the 1940s Block hired a young record collector, Joe Franklin, as his "record picker." Franklin went on to host his own radio and television programs in the  New York City market for more than 65 years.  In 1947, there were two daily editions of the Make Believe Ballroom: one in the late morning and another around dinner time. The illusion was shattered by a 1948 musical short in which Block talked about the show while sitting in front of his extensive record library. He also did a weekly international version of Make Believe Ballroom for Voice of America beginning in 1949. When Block heard that Voice of America would begin broadcasting 
caption: Stan Kenton and Martin Block at WNEW.
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