Wayne King, his orchestra and legendary announcer Franklyn MacCormack made Lady Esther a best seller.
THE WALTZ KING
Ask most any fan of broadcast history about Chicago’s contributions to Network Radio and the response will naturally include Amos & Andy and Fibber McGee & Molly, then perhaps Paul Harvey, First Nighter, Don McNeill's Breakfast Club and possibly a string of daytime serials.
However, odds are that the list will overlook Wayne King, the Chicago-based Waltz King, who racked up eight Top 50 prime time programs in the 1930’s. Making his record more remarkable, three of those shows finished in the 1936-37 Top 50 - one on CBS and two on NBC. King also scored twelve finishes in the nightly Top Ten lists during the decade.
A native of Savanna, Illinois, and an alumnus of the Paul Whiteman band, King was 26 when he debuted with his alto saxophone and twelve piece band at Chicago’s legendary Aragon Ballroom in 1927. King played hundreds of dance dates at the massive showplace over the next eight years which routinely included late night remote broadcasts on powerful KYW and WGN. Those early remotes led to a six-month series on Blue’s Tuesday night schedule in 1930-31 where the band was known as The Pure Oil Orchestra.
King’s broadcasts also caught the attention of Chicago ad agency Stack Gobel which was looking for a radio attraction for its client, a suburban Chicago manufacturer of bargain priced cosmetics. Lady Esther Cosmetics wanted the same kind of success from radio that had been achieved for Chicago‘s Pepsodent Toothpaste by Amos & Andy.
The agency chose Wayne King’s orchestra which had been boosted by the popularity of its 1930 Victor record of King’s theme, The Waltz You Saved For Me, which remained on Billboard’s best seller charts for 15 weeks. He followed that success in 1931 with two Number One hits, Dream A Little Dream of Me and the song used by countless bands to close their dance programs, Goodnight Sweetheart. Although the band played a variety of styles and tempos for dancing, it was the romantic sound of its ballads that appealed to the agency for Lady Esther’s female customers.
King’s orchestra was signed for $500 a broadcast and The Lady Esther Serenade debuted on NBC at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, September 27, 1931. Encouraged by the surge in sales of Lady Esther products, a second NBC broadcast was added on Tuesdays at 8:30 on October 11, 1932.
The NBC Sunday afternoon Serenade was dropped in early October, 1933, replaced with a half hour on the CBS Monday schedule at 10:00 p.m. ET - giving King two prime time half hours on Network Radio every week. And so it went through the decade - Wayne King‘s Lady Esther Serenade was broadcast at least twice a week on CBS and/or NBC until 1939.
The three Lady Esther Serenades of 1936-37 - Mondays at 10:00 on CBS, Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 8:30 on NBC - had a combined rating of 24.7 and the trio of broadcasts in 1937-38 totaled 25.4. Those ratings translated to approximately six million homes per week or 15 million listeners. Granted, many of those homes and listeners were duplicates from one night to the next, but the impact was unmistakable. Lady Esther had become America’s top-selling brand of cosmetics and King’s orchestra was rewarded with $15,000 a week.
In addition, fan magazine Radio Guide presented a trophy to King in 1940 for being voted the Most Popular Band on Radio by its readers for seven consecutive years.
A good share of the broadcasts’ success can be credited to legendary Chicago announcer Franklyn MacCormack. In addition to hosting the show and sharing the commercials with actress Bess Johnson as Lady Esther, MacCormack used his mellow, romantic voice to recite romantic poetry over the orchestra’s soft instrumental accompaniment. The most notable example is heard in 1941’s million-selling record, Melody of Love.
King’s Network Radio popularity was reflected in his record sales. In all, the band recorded 26 Billboard-charted hits during the Depression decade, including his most memorable novelty, 1937’s Josephine, which returned as a radio “turntable hit” during the American Federation of Musicians’ strikes against record companies of 1942-44 and 1948. (1)
Wayne King and Lady Esther parted company in 1939-40 when the cosmetics firm's new agency, Lord & Thomas, replaced him with Guy Lombardo. King took a Saturday night spot on CBS for Colgate-Palmolive’s Cashmere Bouquet Soap and the new program gave The Waltz King his highest ratings since 1934-35, placing him solidly in the night’s Top Ten.
King disbanded his orchestra in 1942 and enlisted in the Army where he rose to the rank of major. Out of the service in 1945, he regrouped the band and it was signed by American Tobacco as Jack Benny’s summer replacement on NBC. Another three month job followed in 1946 as the summer fill for Jimmy Durante & Garry Moore on CBS.
Although Wayne King had reached the end his Network Radio line, the band remained in constant demand for ballroom and theater dates. He returned to local radio via syndication in 1946 with 52 half-hour transcribed shows produced and distributed by the Frederic W. Ziv Co. King Enterprises was paid $2,600 for each of these programs - a lump sum of $135,200.
Over 100 stations bought The Wayne King Show for local and regional sponsors. Ziv advertising from the winter of 1946-47 cites double digit Hooperatings for the program in Detroit, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Indianapolis and other Midwest cities. An excellent example of the show in two 15 minute parts, A and B, with announcer Franklyn MacCormack and singers Nancy Evans and Larry Douglas is posted below. Our thanks to Mike Martini at Cincinnati's Media Heritage, Inc., for providing this transcription.
In 1949 King expanded the orchestra to 17 sidemen and added a chorus for a weekly show on 17 NBC-TV stations sponsored by Standard Oil of Indiana. The series, originating from Chicago‘s WNBQ(TV), lasted for three seasons. With the bigger band and vocal group of this period The Waltz King released a final, fully orchestrated recording of his first big hit and theme song, The Waltz You Saved For Me, (posted below).
Wayne King played a farewell weekend at the Aragon Ballroom's closing in February,1964, 37 years after his band's Chicago debut. (See The Aragon's Last Stand on this site.)
The Waltz King retired to Arizona and died in 1985, leaving behind a legacy of unmatched ratings and record sales.
(1) Listeners to King’s 1931 Number Two Billboard hit, I Don’t Know Why and Josephine, recorded six years later, (both posted below), will note the similarity to the 30-second opening of the former and the latter’s bridge. They’re virtually identical!
Copyright © 2015 Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
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