Earnest Reveler

It costs about $700 to give a recital in Manhattan's Town Hall,* the place where many ambitious young musicians like to start showing what they can do. Few first recitals pay for themselves; the most successful debuts rarely realize more than a few hundred dollars. Tenor James Melton makes much more than that every week singing three or four easy songs over the radio for Coca-Cola. So it was obviously not for his supper that he sang last week in formal Town Hall. In Town Hall the programs put on by earnest young singers are fairly well standardized. They include a classical composer or two, groups of French and German songs, a final group in English. James Melton's program conformed exactly to the pattern set by the earnest, more indigent debutants who have preceded him. He sang most of it through his nose, depended on high, exaggerated pianissimi for many of his effects, gave feeble, skin-deep interpretations of well-worn songs. But his venture was noteworthy if his performance was not. A high-priced radio entertainer was attempting in a modest manner to establish musical prestige.

James Melton is first tenor of the Revelers, greatest money-making male quartet. He is not one of the original Revelers. Only two are: Lewis James, the quartet's genial second tenor who comes from Ypsilanti, Mich., is good enough to solo some times with Manhattan's Philharmonic; Wilfred Glenn, square-set, sandy-haired bass who grew up on a Mexican ranch. Pianist Frank Black joined the Revelers in 1925, started making the smooth arrange ments which make Revelers sound better than other male quartets. The two new Revelers still look like good-natured college boys: Baritone Phil Dewey, who not long ago was earning $3 a Sunday singing in the Methodist Church choir of Bloomington. Ind. ; and tall (6 ft. 2 1/2 in.) James Melton from Ocala, Fla. In 1929, shortly before the quartet took its first European tour, young James Melton married Marjorie Louise McClure, daughter of Novelist Marjorie Barkley McClure. The Revelers earn their big money now broadcasting for Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. over a nation-wide hookup. They broadcast for Buick too, over a midwestern hookup. With a substantial Coca-Cola contract be sides, James Melton will make an easy $100,000 this year. It enables him to live in an expensive penthouse apartment, keep a sailing yacht on the Hudson.

*The wise debutant figures on spending $300 for the rent of the hall ($250 if it is an afternoon recital), $100 for a manager's fee, $300 for publicity, advertising, rent of piano. Singers, violinists and cellists have to pay their accompanists besides (average fee: $75-$100).

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