Vinton Laments Chart-toppers Not As Demanded Today As Previous Years
HOLLYWOOD — The power of having the No. 1 record in the nation seems to have diminished, claims Bobby Vinton, whose disk of “There! I Said It Again” and before that “Blue Velvet” haven’t opened as many magic doors as would have been the case five years ago.
“I’ve talked to several other young performers,” Bobby told Billboard, “and they’ve come to the same conclusion. Times have changed and having the No. 1 record in the country just doesn’t excite television producers and night club owners anymore.”
Vinton, who has been with Epic three years, is currently developing his night club act but finds it frustrating not being able to crack prime time television as easily as the disk artists of five years ago were able to do.
Vinton says he’s been told that TV producers think of him as a rock and roll artist mainly because he’s hit the No. 1 position. “They don’t listen to radio stations which play my records so they have no idea what I sound like and they’ve got me pegged as a strictly teen artist.”
The 25-year -old vocalist theorizes that perhaps one of the reasons for the decline of the disk artist in importance to the TV producer is that the producers had enough of fast rising disk names who only had a sound on record and did not come across effectively on the screen. “These people probably feel they’ve learned a lesson and are staying away from record people.”
During Vinton’s career with Epic he has had three No.1 disks and three more in the top 20. Yet his national TV work has been limited to the Dick Clark, Steve Allen and Lawrence Welk shows.
Besides emphasizing that talent buyers aren’t listening to top 40 stations, Vinton says people in the music industry feel that when an artist has the No.1 record “he’s home.”
“You’re not,” he claims. In Vinton’s case he knows he has to change his teenage image if he wants to crack the few variety format shows available on TV.
Citing Jack Jones and Wayne Newton as two new performers who don’t have a teen image, Vinton wonders whether they too might have been pegged as rock and rollers had they hit the glamorous top spot on the charts. END
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Information and news source: Billboard; February 8, 1964
