[1] That meant that a union musician was allowed to participate on radio programs and other kinds of musical entertainment, but not in a recording session.
The strike did not affect musicians performing on live radio shows, in concerts, or, after October 27, 1943, on special recordings made by the record companies for V-Discs for distribution to the armed forces fighting World War II, because V-Discs were not available for sale to the general public.
[2] [failed verification] Petrillo had long publicly maintained that recording companies should pay royalties.
Recording during the last week was a long list of performers, including Count Basie, Woody Herman, Alvino Ray, Johnny Long, Claude Thornhill, Judy Garland, Crosby (again), Glen Gray, Benny Goodman, Kay Kyser, Dinah Shore, Spike Jones, and Duke Ellington, among others.
Columbia had signed Sinatra on June 1, 1943 and was eager to issue records featuring their new star; the company therefore hired Axel Stordahl as arranger and conductor for several sessions with a vocal group called the Bobby Tucker Singers.
[11][12] He was forced to discontinue this practice after the station's house orchestra staged a retaliatory strike, which was settled after WNEW agreed not to broadcast any records made after August 1, 1942.
[13] The only prominent musical organization not to be affected by the strike's onset was the Boston Symphony Orchestra, as they were not a member of the union.
[14] The orchestra joined the union (and the strike) in late 1942; this kicked off a long series of live BSO radio concerts broadcast on CBS.
Other recording and transcription companies continued to pursue the case with the National Labor Relations Board and the National War Labor Board, culminating in a WLB directive demanding that the AFM rescind its ban on musicians recording for those companies.
When the AFM refused to comply, the matter was referred to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who wrote to James Petrillo: In a country which loves democratic government and loves keen competition under the rules of the game, parties to a dispute should adhere to the decision of the Board even though one of the parties may consider the decision wrong.
[19] Within a few hours after signing the new contract, RCA Victor had Vaughn Monroe and his orchestra record two songs from the new Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film musical, Meet Me in St. Louis.
As television was beginning, there were questions regarding musicians and royalties from this new medium, and a similar, but much shorter strike was called for 1948,[20] lasting close to a year, ending on December 14, 1948.
[28] A significant moment in the rise of the vocalist occurred when Sinatra performed with Benny Goodman and his Orchestra at New York City's Paramount Theater on December 30, 1942.
"[31] As Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns put it in Jazz: A History of America's Music (based on Burns' miniseries), "And so, except for a handful of dedicated collaborators and a few devoted fans, the new music Parker and Gillespie and their cohorts were developing remained largely a secret".
[24] All of the recordings of bebop from 1944 to 1945 after the strike were performed for small labels, with the new music only later starting to gain promotion from the majors.