Lost & Found: an amazing performance of “Its Commercial” circa 1958

During my years stalking the Brill Building I kept getting told by one publisher after another that they loved my songs, but that “its just not commercial”. In one particular case I played them my song “David”, which they loved but they passed on, saying “David just isn’t a very popular name”. In a business driven by the sale of individual songs on 45’s and increasingly focussed on the youth market rather than music “for adults”, publishers were shifting from well-known vocalists singing standards and new material scored in lush orchestra or jazzy big-band arrangements by people like Nelson Riddle to teen-oriented pop songs for the boy or girl-groups that were taking over the recording industry. It was like the door was slowly being closed on a bunch of talented people and in my frustration I wrote a song called “Its Commercial”.

Sometime between 1956 and 1960, I think, Frank Music, my publisher at the time, recorded a demo of it. I wish I knew who the singer was, because he did a fantastic job. Its a great performance by a comic singer that sounds like he stepped out of a movie musical, or the Catskills in the late 50’s (he probably did!). Fabulous, right down to the NY inflections. Enjoy.