Composer of "It Ain't Gonna Rain No More" Defines Present Day Jazz as the "Hokum Type"--Says Radio Wears Music Out

"Children do more to determine the length of popularity of a piece of music than does any other factor," said Wendall Hall, composer of "It Ain't Gonna Rain No More", "Underneath the Mellow Moon". "Land of my Sunset Dreams", and other popular musical selections, in an interview with the CRIMSON yesterday.

"Children either like music, very much or they dislike it very much. Consequently their likes and dislikes are very outwardly expressed. A song that proves harsh or inharmonious to the child's ears will never prove very popular to any of the musical public. A child sings the songs he cares for and booes the ones for which he has a dislike, and in this way controls their popularity."

Asked what determines a popular song, he said. "Ten years ago a song hit was determined by a sale of 100,000,000 copies. Today a piece of popular music is considered a hit if 100,000 copies are sold. This change in conditions is caused by several reasons. Perhaps the greatest factor in the change is the Radio. Since its invention and its broadcasting of music, songs become known by the public much sooner than they used to be when the victrola was the most rapid means of conveying it from ear to ear. Today a piece of music is literally worn out by Radio. No good piece that the public likes can possibly last more than a few months at the rate it is now being heard by the public, daily.

"In these days," he continued, "a sale of 100,000 copies of a piece is considered extraordinary partly because of the great number of song, writers in business who did not write ten years ago. There are so many pieces on the market that only the unusual ones prove of large selling value.

"Music seems to run in cycles," continued the entertainer. "We have had the Hawaiian cycle and the Blues cycle, the one in which oriental types of music were most popular, and then the verse type, the one in which 'It Ain't Gonna Rain No More' was popular. Present day popular music may be classed in what is known as the 'Hokum type.'"

Wendall Hall was the first popular Radio entertainer and the first to be married over the Radio. Commenting on this he said, "Yes, I courted my wife over the Radio, and our audience insisted that we be married over it."