Sheet music plugging In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a song plugger was a
vocalist or
piano player employed in the early 20th century by
department stores,
music stores and song publishers to promote and help sell new sheet music. Prior to high-quality recorded music on
phonograph records, sheet music sales were the sole measurement of a song's popularity. Music publisher
Frank Harding has been credited with innovating the sales method. Typically, the pianist sat on the
mezzanine level of a store. When patrons wanted to hear the music before buying, a clerk would send the music up to the demonstrator to be played. Although the terms are often used interchangeably, those who worked in department and music stores were most often known as "song demonstrators", while those who worked directly for music publishers were called "song pluggers." Notable musicians and composers who had worked as song pluggers included
George Gershwin,
Ron Roker,
Jerome Kern,
Irving Berlin,
Irving Mills, and
Cole Porter. Film executive
Harry Cohn had also been a song plugger.
Rise of recorded music Later, the term was used to describe individuals who would pitch new music to performers, with
The New York Times describing such examples as
Freddy Bienstock performing a job in which he was "pitching new material to
bandleaders and singers". In
1952,
Life writer Ernest Havemann noted the following: There are about 600 song-pluggers in the U.S.; they have their own
union; they are powerful enough to bar all outsiders; and they command fees up to $35,000 a year [worth $ today] plus unlimited expense accounts. Their job is to persuade the record companies to use songs, put out by their publishing houses, and the radio station
disk jockeys to play the records." ==Modern day usage==