[Dixielandjazz] "Muskrat Ramble"

[Bill Haesler]

Dear Louis,
I still can't find my DJML piece on the subject of Ory/Gilbert and suspect
that it was in the three-month batch of  emails 'lost' when Outlook Express
went belly-up and froze my iMac for about 3 weeks.
However, in searching for information regarding Ray Gilbert and his 1940s'
association with "Muskrat Ramble" I came across this little gem from the
Time magazine archive posted Monday on May 6, 1957 entitled 'The Jingle
Jangle':
  "When the band struck up the jazz classic Muskrat Ramble over Los Angeles'
KTTV, Lyricist Ray Gilbert winced to hear his own words replaced by others:
"You're gonna love this coffee, man oh man ..." Last week Gilbert sued for
$300,000 from the sponsor (Hills Brothers Coffee), the ad agency (N. W.
Ayer), and his own music publisher (George Simon), who explained that he had
sold the singing-commercial rights to the music ‹minus the lyrics‹for $500.
Gilbert charged that the jingle had injured his reputation "by reducing him
in the eyes of the music profession, publishers and the public to the level
of a jingle writer."
  But for all Gilbert's distress, the lowly singing commercial‹once
denounced by Herbert Hoover, and banned from the air "in the public
interest" by Detroit's WWF ‹ now commands the talents of bigger names than
his."
The rest of the article makes no further reference to Gilbert and the Ory
tune.
Kind regards,
Bill.