William N. Law Blog: Stanley Cooper (1925-2016)

Stan Cooper, a long-time JazzWax reader who in the 1950s was a music publishing executive who brought Learnin' the Blues to the attention of Frank Sinatra, died in Jupiter, Fla., early yesterday morning. He was 91. [Photo of Stan Cooper last year on his 90th birthday by Bradley Berkwitt]

Over the years, Stan and I spoke at least twice a year—once on his birthday and again on the birthday of his dear friend, songwriter Jack Reardon, who wrote the lyrics to The Good Life. It was a gas speaking with Stan and Jack. I always felt as if I had been transported back to a time in New York when music was everything. Stan had been a JazzWax reader from the blog's start in 2007.

Stan was like a steel file cabinet from New York's Brill Building or the triangular drink cups at Nedick's or the buzz in Colony Music late at night or the cherry color of red neon signs. He was old New York, when song pluggers and record promoters set out to hustle newly published songs to producers, managers and singers with hopes of landing a hit. Stan was New York when Broadway traffic ran uptown and downtown, smoke puffed from the male model on the Camel cigarettes billboard in Times Square, and the sound of distant pianos and dancers could still be heard coming from studio windows one flight up.

Stan's knowledge of the pop music industry, vocalists, arrangers and the best versions of songs was unmatched. He'd often call following a JazzWax post about a singer to share stories about the vocalist and why that person's version was special or why another was slightly better. Stan had a great ear and he was always right.

In exchange, I often knocked him out with posts on little-known albums by jazz artists and singers that had miraculously escaped him. I remember after writing about David Allyn's Sure Thing, my phone rang and it was Stan, with his insistent raspy voice. "My God, I knew David when he was on the scene but I had no idea he had recorded that. That was remarkable."

Back in the 1950s, Stan managed Barton Music Corp., the music publishing company part-owned by Frank Sinatra. Stan's job was to spot potential hits for Barton, acquire the rights, and match the song to a singer who had the best chance of making the song a hit. Back in those days, when a song was a hit, its publisher and writer made money based on units of sheet music and records sold and radio airplay.

Stan had a hand in helping Sinatra record Learnin' the Blues, which would be the singer's only #1 pop hit until Strangers in the Night in 1966. Here's what Stan told me about the song:

"Back in late 1954 or early 1955, two guys came up to my office at Barton Music on the fourth floor of New York’s Brill Building. They had a record they wanted me to hear. After we played it a few times, they asked me what I thought of the singer. I liked the singer fine, but the song was so-so. So I flipped over the demo. It was Learnin’ the Blues. I thought the singer, a guy named Joe Valino, was terrific. But to me, he sounded too much like Sinatra. Dozens of singers were modeling their sound after Frank's then. But the song, wow, that was different story. It was a hit.

"My job at Barton was to listen to songwriters’ songs and demo recordings and identify the ones that had the potential to be a big seller. I had managed a bunch of record stores on Sixth Avenue years earlier and had a knack for picking songs that would become hits. Record executives used to play songs for me to get my reaction before moving forward. So I became a publishing manager. But finding great songs was only half of it.

You had to match a great song to the right singer. When that happened, you had magic. Great songs recorded by the wrong singers usually went no place. A song had to work with the singer's personality and style to connect. When you had that, the song clicked with the public and became a hit.

"For example, when I first heard Cy Coleman's I'm Gonna Laugh You Right Out of My Life in 1955, I knew it was a hit. When I brought it to the attention of Nat King Cole, he played it on the piano while I sang the lyrics. Then he played and sang it about 20 times. He heard what I had heard and loved it. The next week, he recorded it, and the song hit the charts and the song became a standard.

"The same thing happened with Earl and Alden Shuman's and Marshall Brown’s Seven Lonely Days in 1953. I first heard about the song from Elliott Kastner, a friend in the William Morris Agency mail room. He called me and said his pals had written a lousy song but he was honoring a promise to call me. I said send your pals over.

When the writers arrived, we went into a studio and they played and sang it for a demo. I could hear right away it was great. I also knew the song would be perfect for Georgia Gibbs (above). When I went over to see her, she resisted. She thought it was too hillbilly. But the more she rehearsed it that day, the more she realized she had a hit on her hands. She recorded Seven Lonely Days that night and had a hit with it.

"So back to Learnin' the Blues. I knew it was big. When I asked the two guys in my office who brought in the Joe Valino single for the name of the songwriter, they wouldn’t give it to me. They were there, in my office, for the singer, they said. After a while they told me that the songwriter was a woman named Vicki Silvers. I asked where she lived. They told me in Philadelphia. But they wouldn’t give me her address.

"As soon as they left, I got on the phone and found out she was married to a guy named Arthur Silvers, a wealthy guy who was in the clothing business. When I called him up, sure enough, Vicki Silvers was his wife. So I told him who I was, that I worked for Sinatra's publishing company, and I made an appointment to meet with them the next day. Those two guys were in my office on Friday. I was on a train to Philadelphia the next morning to meet with Silvers.

"When I got to the house, a woman who looked like Ava Gardner opened the door. I said I was there to see Miss Silvers. She told me she was Vicki Silvers (above). I was stunned. She looked like a movie actress. When I went in and spoke with Vicki and her husband, I told them I was crazy about the song and that I wanted to bring it to Sinatra. They were excited. I always carried blank contracts with me. When I took one out, they wanted to add a clause. It said that if within six months Sinatra had no interest in the song, the rights would return to Silvers.

"I was fine with that. I knew that if Sinatra didn’t record it, the song wouldn't likely become big. So Vicki Silvers signed, and the copyright transferred to Barton Publishing, whose job it was to make the song popular. No advance changed hands. In those days, a song's writer made money only after the song hit and revenue came in through the sale of singles and sheet music.

"When I returned to New York later that day, I brought the Joe Valino single and Silvers' contract to Frank Military [Sinatra's longtime aide] (above). He sent the record out with about 20 others to Sinatra. Sinatra received the package that Monday. Sinatra apparently went through all the demos in the package, but the only one he picked was Valino singing Learnin' the Blues. He recorded it soon after, in March '55.

"For bringing the song in, Ben Barton paid me a $100 [laughs] and he took all the credit for finding it. About a month later, I quit and took a job at Fischer Publishing.

"Joe Valino didn't have a hit with Learnin' the Blues, but he benefited greatly from Sinatra’s success with it. Thanks to the Sinatra single, Joe got more exposure for his version and landed a record deal with RCA."

Love you Stan and miss you much. And a special thanks to Bradley Berkwitt, who knew Stan since he was 12 and alerted me earlier today. [Photo above of Bradley Berwitt and Stanley Cooper last year]