July 24, 1976: Jingle writers Ron Lombardo and Norm Wahl

 

Spotlight on a little-recognized corner of the music biz:

July 24, 1976

Fate of Jingle Writers and the Lone Ranger:

‘Who Was That Masked Man?’

RON LOMBARDO’S BEEN a rock singer around Buffalo since 1971. Norm Wahl has been on the local coffeehouse circuit for almost as long. Chances are you’ve heard them on the radio. Chances are you also don’t know it’s them.

“We were sitting in the studio the other day,” Norm relates, “and one of the radio stations called up and wanted to know who was singing on the new Dan Creed Chevrolet jingle. They really liked the voice.”

That’s the problem. In their anonymous stock in trade – making jungles for radio commercials – it’s all exposure and no recognition.

Which is why they’re both here in Norm’s apartment near UB, listening as that same voice (which is somewhere between Glen Campbell and David Gates of Bread) illuminates an old Paul Williams song, “Waking Up Alone.”

“People say it was a minor hit for Paul Williams,” Norm says, “but nobody remembers it. This is just the demo. We’re doing the real one next week. We sent it out to six record companies.”

“We haven’t heard from any of them yet,” Ron says. “We figure the longer they take, the better our chances.”

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HOPEFULLY, IT won’t be as long as it took Ron and Norm to put the tune down on tape.

The first rhythm tracks were taken in January 1975, not long after Amherst Records national promotion director Rich Sargent suggested “Waking Up Alone” to them. The last violin was added a couple of months ago.

“I was going to UB at the time,” Norm says, “and that slowed me down a bit. Ron was in a group called the Waverly Brothers at the time and the group slowed it down.

“When I got out of college in May,” he continues, “I joined the group and the record didn’t seem very relevant at the time. It didn’t fit in with what the Waverly Brothers were doing. The record is showcase for a singer, not a group. But when the band broke up last January, it was back to the studio.”

The studio is Trackmaster Audio. Due to move soon from the old Larkin Warehouse on Seneca Street to a refurbished Franklin Street mansion, it’s become the city’s biggest commercial production program over the past three years.

Norm and Ron got into Trackmaster in its early days.

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FOR RON, it was via the former Act One Studios, where he worked with pianist John Valby on the first album for Sabres hockey player Jim Schoenfeld.

There he met Ken Kaufman, keyboard player for The Road, Buffalo’s big late ‘60s band, and went on to play guitar in the group Waves behind Road lead singer Phil Hudson.

Waves practiced in the then-unfinished studio while Trackmaster maestro Alan Baumgardner practiced recording them.

For Norm, the connection was folksinger Steve Chalmer, whom he met in a coffeehouse one night. Chalmer wanted to learn production, so he made a tape of Norm.

“It had a lot of flaws,” Norm says, “but that was my start. Since then, I’ve been writing, arranging and co-producing jingles. I’ve arranged strings for people and I just finished producing a duo from Eden named Williams & Bellisle.”

* * *

RON AND NORM play as a duo themselves, singing Jim Croce tunes and other things they like over guitar and piano Fridays and Saturdays in Grandmother’s Closet at Brighton Avenue and Eggert Road, Town of Tonawanda.

But jingles are what pays their rent. Norm calls his Metrobus tune “my greatest hit.” One of Ron’s singing efforts – for Surefine Foods down South – was nominated for a Cleo Award, the adman’s Oscar.

“I used to hate jingles,” Ron explains. “Now that I’m into them, my friends think I’m crazy. But the more you get into it, the more you realize it’s sort of an art.”

“People don’t realize what goes into a jingle,” Norm contends. “They don’t know what it takes to organize it into a full, cohesive piece.

“Usually the ad agency comes to someone like Alan, then Alan will unleash his writers on it. Alan is an excellent jingle writer himself. When we submit all the ideas to the ad agency, they usually pick his.”

* * *

FOR METROBUS, however, Norm says Alan simply decided the company needed a jingle and sold one to them. The tune came from melodic scraps Norm had written as a joke. Alan rewrote the words. The ad agency rewrote Alan’s words. And the result is on the radio.

“A lot of times,” Norm says, “a jingle will hang around until the right words come to it. The Dan Creed jingle was a tune I wrote for the Erie County Fair last year. For the fair, they picked one of Alan’s jingles.

“I guess jingle writers are frustrated songwriters at heart,” he concludes. “Just the other day I was writing a jingle and thought: ‘That’d make a good tune.’ That’s not so crazy, really. You know the song ‘We’ve Only Just Begun?’ Originally, it was a jingle for a bank.”

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IN THE PHOTO: Ron Lombardo, left, and Norm Wahl at Trackmaster Audio studios.

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FOOTNOTE: Third appearance for Ron Lombardo in these pages, first in 1971 with a rock band from Starpoint Central High School named Bags, then in 1973 with Waves, a group fronted by Phil Hudson of The Road. In between, he was a member of The Road and contributed songs to their “Cognition” album.

Ron continued working with Ken Kaufman and was one of the singers on that famous Cellino & Barnes commercial from the 1990s. He had a track on Michael Civisca’s 1997 Christmas album, “That Holiday Feeling” and he’s done some work with his good friend “Dr. Dirty” – John Valby.  

Norm Wahl’s harder to trace, though he seems to be right here in Amherst. He was arranger on a Ron Lombardo record titled “Goodnight 17.”