[coolnt]

Here is a demo for the Simple and Free Package from Pepper Tanner produced for WCOD Cape Cod.

http://jinglemad.com/e107_files/public/1234755613_542_FT0_wcod.mp3 filename:wcod.mp3

[kolossMember]

and another

http://jinglemad.com/e107_files/public/1234767946_5465_FT69239_wkwx_tanner_simple__free.mp3 filename:wkwx_tanner_simple__free.mp3

[Bigdave]

These may have been posted elsewhere on here,but Simple & Free has been an influence on many people,including Nottingham's Radio Trent and our own Pete Wilson.

Listen to a 1980 “tribute” to it by Alfasound…the original one's first

[Bigdave]

And…Pete Wilson's Version – lyrics by…me!

http://jinglemad.com/e107_files/public/1234813359_59_FT69239_pete_wilson_-_simple__free.mp3 filename:pete_wilson_-_simple__free.mp3

[LenGroat]

oh WooooW! What an audio feast tonight..

I have NEVER tired of 'Simple & Free', to me it's the perfect 'commercial pop' jingle package.. the Genius of Chris Kershaw

GREAT Drums, strings, vocals ~ clever instrumental and vocal part writing; 'Doobie Brothers meets Fifth Dimension, with a spice of Gospel thrown in..'

….and this selection shows how good it was… and IS !

Well done on the Peter Wilson re-sing.. that lyric REALLY fits and is amusing

I guess the singing was at JAM, the overall sound is as the originals, and the same lead vocalist all these decades later ~ Abbey ?

If I was starting up a good old no nonsense 'ILR' station today, you could STILL use about 80% of 'Simple & Free' to construct the package as they WORK so well with music.

Incidentally, EVERYONE seems to spot 'that' cut 'Sittin'on the sand' as one we used to 'base' a Trent 1 cut on, but there are TWO others in the demo we also used for Trent 1… happy spotting!

[Barras]

WDRC went with “Friendly” and free…

3379 WILLIAM B.TANNER – WDRC “You and Me” Hartford CT (Friendly and Free)

Barras

[AndyWaltersMember]

Simple & Free WCOD sounds very similar to 100.3 WNIC. It's Nice from JAM. If only they wrote jingles like that today or, more to the point, if only stations could see that a modern equivalent would work today.

[Barras]

Andy,

have a listen to this sampler of the WDRC cuts – the vocal harmonies sounds similar to JAM too…

http://davidbarras1.fileave.com/Tanner%20WDRC.mp3

Barras

[LenGroat]

Andy : your point about the '100.3 WNIC' logo melody seems right – maybe the PC was a fan of 'Simple & Free' !?

David B. : I think the 'early' JAM vocal sound for uptempo jingles WAS evolved from what Chris Kershaw had written for the few packages he did for Tanner* between PAMS and JAM, which I believe they temporarily had the (former) PAMS vocal group for?

*'Thunder Productions', part of Tanner, did a GREAT package 'Super O' for KONO. This had sharp short tracks and GREAT vocals+, with the energy of JAM's 'Priority One' that came out after this.

I'm not sure if CK actually wrote these but I'm pretty sure it's him and some of the other 'Simple and Free' vocal group on them?

+ tracks such as 'Michael James Lucas ~ KONO', 'KONO ~ San Antonio'

[Barras]

LenGroat wrote:
David B. : I think the 'early' JAM vocal sound for uptempo jingles WAS evolved from what Chris Kershaw had written for the few packages he did for Tanner* between PAMS and JAM, which I believe they temporarily had the (former) PAMS vocal group for?

Len,

like myself, I know you are a great JAM fan and I will probably regret writing this but I`ve had this theory for a long time that Chris Kershaw heavily influenced the “JAM sound”. No disrespect to the genius of Jon Wolfert but a lot of the work done earlier by Chris Kershaw sounds like JAM – you`ve mentioned CK`s work with Tanner (pre-JAM in the early 1970s) what about his work with his own jingle company Music K – i.e. some of the jingles are featured in JAM`s “You`ve Got it” for example:- SMILE WITH US IN THE MORNING HERE ON RADIO ONE…was from the Chris Kershaw Music K demo called Basics, there are several cuts from that demo re-sung by JAM and in my ears, they are very much the “JAM sound”.

Furthermore, Chris Kershaw`s work with The Sundance Organization, for example, in 1976, the famous Radio 2 traffic jingle in the UK:- THIS IS RADIO TWO WITH YOUR TRAFFIC NEWS (music bed) – originally for FM98 by Sundance and Chris Kershaw, again, it sounds like JAM. I don`t really know the history about Music K, a lot of what Chris Kershaw did at that time (early 1970s) all seems to merge together between Thunder, Music K, Sundance and JAM. Of course, a lot of those jingles (if not ALL of them) were produced at the Sundance studios in Insurance Lane (pre-JAM studios) Dallas.

I often wonder if Chris Kershaw had been more business successful with Music K, would that have prevented the birth of JAM ?

Barras

[SeanMartin]

LenGroat wrote:
oh WooooW! What an audio feast tonight..

Well done on the Peter Wilson re-sing.. that lyric REALLY fits and is amusing

I guess the singing was at JAM, the overall sound is as the originals, and the same lead vocalist all these decades later ~ Abbey ?

Actually, we did Pete's at iJingles/TM (since TM owns the Tanner inventory) and it was Greg Clancy who adapted Dave's lyrics and re-scored all the vocal parts by ear since the harmony charts were dumped a couple of decades ago. I can only imagine that somebody, way back then decided that Simple & Free had seen it's day.

Greg also lead the vocal group in the session.

We had to hunt high and low for the tracks since they'd been “retired” and it's instances like this that the Media Preservation Foundation comes into it's own – plus, Tracy knows who did what, when, where and so on.

Cheryl is on female lead, btw.

-Sean

[topcat]

Well I figure I might as well pipe my two cents in here.

As Sean has pointed out, Cheryl was the original lead vocalist on this package, produced at Thunder. Someone recently told me that Brian Beck wrote this package, but all I hear is Chris Kershaw on the package “counts”.

MPF dug deep to pull out the backing track for Pete Wilson's 30 years of collecting cut. Greg Clancy wrote the charts, as mentioned, for the final product.

As I pointed out in another thread, the WKWX version of “Simple & Free” was actually sung at TM, produced at the time by Tony Griffin.

Also, there were actually FOUR versions of the demo:

1. WCOD Version, included in this thread. – Dallas Vocals
2. WDRC Simple & Free (Unnarrated) – Dallas Vocals
3. WDRC Friendly & Free (Unnarrated) – Dallas Vocals
4. WDRC Land of the Free (Unnarrated) – Relyric for 1976 Bicentenial with CRAPPY Memphis vocals.

Tanner thought that WDRC was a bigger station than WCOD, hence the revised demos. WDRC used the package on the air following their utilization of TM's WHERE YOUR FRIENDS ARE and on the FM, Custom TM Acappellas. The station is 20 mins down the road and I dubbed all of this stuff off of their station masters.

Tanner shut down Thunder and brought the tracks back to Memphis to be sung. They thought the vocal group there was good enough. They weren't. I could be mistaken, but I believe that Jon Wolfert engineered the original Thunder sessions.

[LenGroat]

David, Sean, TC

Many thanks for all the extra information and points ~ it is EXACTLY what JingleMad is about ~ and I hope helps the younger Jinglemadders realise that these great classic jingle packages evolved fronm a 'talent soup'!

In this case Tanner had NO idea how great this package was ~ Chris K. created a package reflectng a unique area 'Cape Cod' and it showed in the style and feel and lyrics ~ it was poorly promoted OR lyrically could not be used in 'duller' parts of America full of wheat or coal, as it had that 'alive & coastal' feel ? !

Every person who played a part in creating it added something 'extra' ~ Cheryl's vocals (thanks Sean) are superb ~ the 'gospel call and response' on the 'Happy Sound of Savannah' track is superb, and the acapellas mix out lets you hear the block.

I spoke with CK about this package one lunch time at JAM and I'm pretty certain he wrote most of it.

As regards Dave's comments, I think Chris and Jon teamed up at JAM (Chris was staff of course) as they had complementary talents ~ kind of Bacharach and David ~ and realised they had all the ingredients to make GREAT product, which is better than, and has outlasted what PAMS achieved? For example, there was no one 'Jon Wolfert' at PAMS, it was a mix of various talents?

Watching many sessions at JAM (in the 90s) the vocal group was nearly always led by Chris+. Only he can hear what was 'happening in the air' in the booth ~ its the intemix of each singers volume there, that makes it 'happen'. The engineer is dependent on Chris's decision.

I think Jon more than anyone else knew about EVERY part of a jingle, and could write / play all and any, and once he went into his 'Z100 fx era' it was the subltle fx on many packages that made JAM unique.

+ It's also relevant that Judy Palma transcended the PAMS / JAM era, and wrote vocal charts on many jingles for the resings. As recently as 2007 I discussed the vocals on my 'Seventies Sunday' cuts with her over the phone and she wrote the parts. Judy knows EXACTLY what is needed , though I believe she works less now, as she is 'retired' ?

The re-score by Greg Clancy is amazing, and I noticed the steel guitar is more audible in that cut, there is less piano (we particularly mixed the piano up for the Trent version)

All in all, that one package that was sadly overlooked, lost and re-found, focusses a lot of what is GREAT about Dallas ~ and explains WHY Memphis never had a chance !

[Barras]

Here`s a sampler of one of the Chris Kershaw cuts I mentioned previously, the first cut is by Chris kershaw`s Music K and the others are re-sung by JAM…featuring WPGC, Radio One, WCBM, Noel Edmonds, Tony Blackburn:-

http://jinglemad.com/e107_files/public/1234876872_3680_FT69239_ckcut.mp3 filename:ckcut.mp3

Barras

[coolnt]

hi LenGroat, yes, indeed i am learning so much from here. This is the time when young jinglemadders like you said, dropped everything REELWORLD to pay homage to the jingles of the past.

I was kind of confused who now owns the old jingles of Pepper Tanner, but now I know that TM is keeping the inventory.

My only question is the Simple and Free is now offered for resing by Ben Freedman. How is this possible?

[topcat]

What remains of the Pepper-Tanner/Media General mssters actually are in the Media Preservation Foundation warehouses in Massachusetts. Ben Freedman licensed the materials from TM Studios, the copyright holder.

[Bigdave]

AndyWalters wrote:
Simple & Free WCOD sounds very similar to 100.3 WNIC. It's Nice from JAM. If only they wrote jingles like that today or, more to the point, if only stations could see that a modern equivalent would work today.

Andy,If my memory serves me right,the WNIC JAM packages (It's Nice,Very Nice etc) were commissioned by Radio Consultant Gary Berkowitz – the man also behind the commissioning of other great JAM packages such as Q Cuts and Right On Q.

I wonder if he was a Pepper Fan as well?

[mbMember]

I have to say I think Simple and Free is an awsome package. Really nice cuys and vocals a joy to listen to. I think ijingles / TM did a great job on the resing.

[JAM / PAMSMember]

For those who might not know the story:

Originally there was Pepper Sound Studios in Memphis. (The story of John Pepper and what lead him into the jingle business is quite interesting, but that's another thread.) In the late 60s, the company became Pepper-Tanner. Then it was The William B. Tanner Company. And finally it was Media General, before the assets (mostly library contracts) were bought by TM in Dallas.

Pepper-Tanner jingles were used mostly in smaller markets, or by lesser stations in medium markets. They habitually used big station call letters on their demos (WABC, KFWB, etc.) but those stations never actually used those packages. Their sales practices were often, shall we say, unscrupulous.

To try to overcome the Pepper-Tanner stigma, which was a combination of the company's reputation and the Memphis sound, they decided to create a new division called Thunder Productions and record several packages using writers, musicians, singers and studio in Dallas. A deal was made with Chris Kershaw to write and produce a few packages. One of those packages was “Simple and Free” (a line inspired by the 1973 Chicago song “Just You 'n' Me”.) Yes, Chris did write the entire package.

It was recorded at Sundance (the studio that was at Insurance Lane before it became JAM), and utilized all the top musicians and singers of the day… pretty much the same ones who were working for everyone else in town. I was available as a freelance engineer in those days, and did work on the package too.

It should be noted that although Cheryl did sing some solos on the original package (and on the Pete Wilson re-sing, years later), she was not a member of the 7-voice vocal group that you hear on most of the package. The lead singer of the group was Jackie Dickson.

The Thunder experiment lasted a couple of years at most. They gave away a package to WLS and WABC so they could say they were clients. But in the end, Pepper-Tanner found it too cumbersome and expensive to pay for talent and studio in another city when they had their own singers and studios in Memphis. So they had the master tapes sent back to Tennessee, and did further re-sings of the packages there. (They also tried to hire me at one point, which I respectfully declined.)

As for the notion that Chris somehow “invented” the early JAM vocal sound, that is an extreme over-simplification. That's like saying that whoever first discovered the “F major 7” chord invented the JAM vocal sound, just because we use that chord a lot. The 7-voice vocal group on station jingles can be traced back to many producers' packages from the 60s and 70s. Because of the success of PAMS Series 40 from 1970, it became the “standard” vocal sound that stations wanted in this era. (Early TM jingles deliberately used 5-voices in an attempt to differentiate themselves from what was then known as the “PAMS Sound”.) Chris, I and others learned how to write in the 7-voice style and continued using it as we branched out on our own. Because there was a lot of personnel overlap amongst Music-K/Sundance/Thunder/Toby Arnold/JAM and other companies in the 1974-75 era, it is not surprising that there are similarities between the product.

I often wonder if Chris Kershaw had been more business successful with Music K, would that have prevented the birth of JAM ?

I should point out that JAM began in 1974, but Chris did not become a regular member of our vocal group until 1976! He was not involved in our first handful of packages at all (Dimension Two, Prority 1, Back Seat Music, Magic Music, Country Jam, etc.). Of course once he did decide to sing for us, the sound of his voice, his writing, and his skills as a producer did create a trademark vocal sound for JAM for many years, and he obviously did contribute a great deal.

[GlennaMember]

Was the unscrupulous the reason that William B. got in trouble with the law?

Or was that a separate deal.

[topcat]

Beaver205 wrote:
Was the unscrupulous the reason that William B. got in trouble with the law?

Or was that a separate deal.

I'm not sure what you're referring to. However, William Tanner was convicted on charges of mail fraud and tax violations in the early nineties.

After that, he bought into an outdoor advertising business that he sold in for $100 Million US in 1996. He also sold out of a bank he owned the same year for $52 Million US. Not so bad, if you ask me.

-TC

[GlennaMember]

That's what I'm talking about.
I read in a book long time ago but couldn't remember all the details.

Thanks

[LenGroat]

Hello Jon

Thank you for so thoroughly filling in 'the gaps in the story', and detailing the precise chronology. This one topic really is a BOOK.

I remember thinking at the time that the Thunder Productions demos were 'very PAMS', but of course in Britain then I had no idea of the demise of PAMS which was happening at the same time ~ though I was concerned at the poor quality vocals on some of the cuts in the second Metro PAMS package to the extent that I wrote asking for some re-sings ~ they never replied.

The 'clampdown' by the IBA / MU in 1975 to stop us using US jingle companies is now well known, and Radio 1 (wisely) switching to JAM was around the same time. The rest is now (JAM) history, as your company became the 'standard' by which anyone elses product had to be judged.

Your comments about the genesis of the 7 voice vocal group sound were also stimulating. You will remember that for GEM-AM I always asked for 7 voice parts even on packages originally written for 5 part. To me it was the 'cream on the vocal cake', a sound that only JAM could create exactly, and thankfully STILL do, even though the passing years mean that some of the 'classic' vocal group no longer sing…

Regardless of this, the consistency of 'your' sound has meant it has been, JAM yesterday, JAM tomorrow…

… AND.. JAM today!

[JAM / PAMSMember]

Was the unscrupulous the reason that William B. got in trouble with the law?

Let the public record speak for itself:

[JAM / PAMSMember]

…

[Author]

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