Confessions Of A jingle Writer

Yes, it’s a confession. And yes, I was a jingle writer. A confession, because many jazz musicians always thought of jingle writers as “selling out.” To a degree, that’s true… as the fact is, song writers have to eat and pay their rent too, and ad agencies pay real money for any jingle they use.

As a jazz pianist, I never thought of myself as “selling out.” When my jingle business started, I had no idea it would become all-encompassing. I thought I would always play jazz piano… wherever, whenever. And in the end, I did, for the last 2-3 years of my career.

Jazz musicians who don’t compose are trapped, to a degree, in night club work and concerts. That gets really hard after a while… ask any of them. Being a “studio rat” is so much easier, and usually much more profitable.

This was the piano in Studio E. Not bad, huh?

Even so, jingle writing is a curious line of endeavor, I know. How a composer/musician even becomes a jingle writer can be a real head-scratcher, except for the money thing. Many song writers feel it would be beneath them to write a jingle, and the rest of us, who do write jingles, think that’s fine… more work for us.

I learned right away that writing jingles had way more perks than just the money. For one thing, being in a recording studio several times a week, recording constantly different music with many different musicians, was a fantastic opportunity for growth. And you meet so many people that you’d never run into in a dark night club. The different contacts I made over the years became invaluable.

 

Me, Pete Caldwell and Joe Neil mixing a jingle session in E

For one thing, many of those “different contacts” occasionally used my little studio to record their jingles if their budgets were small, but they still needed good quality. My recording studio survived beautifully in Atlanta for all those 31 years, though I doubt it would have done nearly as well if not for those contacts I’d made while working at Doppler Studios.

I also learned that we are what the outside world thinks we are. It was years before I realized that very few out of there saw me as I saw myself… a jazz piano player, or even composer. Even today, if you found a few people in Atlanta who remembered me and was asked what I did, I’m sure they’d say something like, “Oh yeah, the jingle writer. He worked at Doppler, didn’t he?” And the only official recognition I got in 31 years was a plaque for Arranger Of The Year in the Southwest region of the National Ad Council.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My favorite place to spend the workday, right?

Studio E, the biggest and best recording studio in the South.

A live session in Studio E

My best years, for sure, were there at Doppler, probably the best and biggest recording studio in the Southeast. Doppler kept two of us “jingle writers” on staff, even gave us offices there. To be, and to work in a great recording studio 4-6 days a week was, for me, a heaven on earth. For years there I was one of those guys who could say, at lest 4 days a week, that “It don’t get no better than this!”

Sometime in the middle ’70’s I began writing jingles for Doppler, which started out close to downtown Atlanta, on the 2nd floor of an old furniture store. During that first year I got to write a jingle for a restaurant in Miami at the time… Toppings. And who sang the jingle?

Susan Bennett, who became world famous as the voice of Siri. She’s a wonderful singer and musician, as well as being a super person. I think it’s the only jingle we ever did together. I’ve added it here, so you can hear her fine voice, along with our jingly jingle.  Imagine a voice-over saying things between all the “Take Me To Toppings” with phrases like, great food! – All your favorite drinks! – Excellent service! – Fabulous views of the harbor! Etc. Now remember, this was late’70’s, and synthesizers were brand new.

I don’t think I played a single piano gig for at least ten years there. All my playing was in the studio, recording. I played others’ sessions besides my own until the late ’80’s, when several young players appeared on the Atlanta scene who out-played me, and were good sight readers. But that was okay, I’d already had way more than my share of the wealth, of the fun.

So you know, the all-time king of the jingle writers is Barry Manilow. He became famous for his “ Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.” He wrote probably 50 others, but that was his biggie. And he still gets residual payments for it, 40 years later. Just to mark our differences as successful jingle writers, I had, at one point, a cabin in Montana, a cabin on a lake in NW Georgia, a 3-bedroom home in Decatur, (Atlanta suburb) a ’56 Chevy, an ’80 Bronco, a Toyota Land Cruiser, a motorcycle, and my own recording studio.

Barry, on the other hand, had a huge home in Palm Springs and a steady singing gig in Vegas, which he flew to most days in his own private jet… and flew back home most nights after his gig. The only thing I can think of that I had and that Barry probably didn’t, was a wife and a small child. A huge difference in personal success… except for two things. 1. He was famous and I wasn’t, and didn’t care to be. And 2. He was happy, and so was I.

See how many ways one can trick himself into seeming to be more than he is,.to magnify his self-image by faux comparisons? Yep, easy enough, especially when that person understands the relative insignificance off a jingle writer, and yet has an ego that demands recognition. Now that’s not really me, by the way, but it must be in there somewhere if I just wrote about it.

So, though I totally confess to being a jingle writer, still I became so much more, at least in my own head. And, ultimately, that’s where we all live anyway, isn’t it?

Steve Hulse