song-plugger (1907), song-plugging (1916)

[Page Stephens]

Unless I am mistaken song plugger could be used in two different senses.

The first was a person who worked for a company which sold sheet music.

"In the 1910s and 1920s, if you went into a music store to buy sheet music
you would likely find a song plugger—a pianist and singer who would perform
songs for you in the same way we preview CDs in a record store today. If
you had walked into Jerome H. Remick & Company (one of the famous "Tin Pan
Alley" companies) in 1915, that song plugger might well have been the young
George Gershwin. From this humble beginning, Gershwin went on to become
both the best-known composer of popular music and the most popular composer
of concert music in America."
http://www.wwnorton.com/enjoy/shorter/composers/gershwin.htm

The sense in which Benjamin's quotes use it is somewhat different in that
it deals with vaudevillians who plugged songs in their acts. This was also
common and is related to a similar phenomenon which involved a person who
wrote a song and then found some vaudevillian or early recording artist who
would perform it in return for getting their name on the song and a
percentage of the profits. Some times this merely meant that the title
sheet would say as performed by but other times the performer if they were
famous enough might be able to demand that they be listed as a coauthor
with their name listed first.

As a result I rarely depend on any information from the sheet covers when I
am attempting to discover who wrote a song but if a famous performer's name
appears first I take it with a grain or mountain of salt.

Page Stephens

> [Original Message]
> From: Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU>
> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Date: 6/30/2005 7:46:57 AM
> Subject: song-plugger (1907), song-plugging (1916)
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU>
> Subject:      song-plugger (1907), song-plugging (1916)
>
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>
> * song-plugger (OED2 1923)
>
> 1907 _Washington Post_ 14 Jul. (Magazine) 2/6 But vaudeville people with
> any desire to keep up in the first rank must avoid the reputation that
> comes to 'song pluggers.'
>
> * song-plugging (OED2 1927)
>
> 1916 _Fitchburg Daily Sentinel_ (Mass.) 7 Oct. 3[?]/3 Song plugging was
> given a new exemplification in this city Friday night.
>
> 1917 _Oakland Tribune_ 17 Sep. 5/2 However, he doesn't appeal to his
> audiences as much with the cycles any more, relying rather upon ... a
> song-plugging pair, who do their work real well.
>
> 1918 _Chicago Tribune_ 27 Jan. V4/2 That is the highest and least tainted
> manifestation of that little known, unsung institution called "song
> plugging."
>
>
>
> --Ben Zimmer