Selling with songs from Tampa Bay

Times Correspondent

Jeff Arthur started out out writing music and carrying out in a trio. His group, Arthur, Hurley & Gottlieb, designed two albums, the 2nd one particular praised by the Time Magazine critic. But the Jeff Arthur compositions familiar to most people in the Tampa Bay place are played continually on Television set commercials.

4 much more than four decades, the St. Petersburg native has manufactured his living composing jingles for corporations in Television set and radio markets all over the nation. He also wrote the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ fight song, “Hey, Hey, Tampa Bay,’’ Arthur, 69, semi-retired, even now writes jingles in his Clearwater office. He talked with the Tampa Bay Instances about his career.

You say you began executing when you ended up a college student at the University of South Florida.

There was a track contest which I entered with a further dude that was in my school, and we gained the regional contest and then we went on and received the intercollegiate music pageant for all the colleges in the United States. Following that happened, we ongoing to perform, not for a incredibly lengthy time. We immediately moved to New York. I ought to have been probably 20 at the time, 19, and we received a very big report offer with (producer) Clive Davis. And the rationale was… we had been really various. It was violin, guitar and piano, very orchestrated.

Your next album, for A&M Documents, gained kudos in Time Journal, you say.

The next album was picked in Time Magazine, along with Bob Dylan, “Blood on the Tracks,’’ Linda Ronstadt, Henry Gross and us. I think it was like a single of the 5 or six picked albums for 1975, and it said all constructive issues. And how can I argue with becoming (named) together with Ronstadt, “Heart Like a Wheel,” and “Blood on the Tracks” by Dylan?

How did you start off producing and providing jingles?

I started off doing it for pay, my 1st jingle was for a business known as Just Pants in Chicago, and that was a incredibly popular jingle in Florida. And that was likely… ’74 or ’75. … Everyone has an notion for a jingle or a good concept for a merchandise. All people. The distinction amongst what I was in a position to do and what every person else wishes to do is that I was ready to get it into the market. … Just by utilizing my (established) industry, I was capable to produce these. … I wrote every thing on all the albums, but I also understood that a jingle was just a 30-next or 60-second tune about a solution as a substitute of about a romantic relationship or going riding on my bicycle or issues like that. And I was capable to get paid.

Do you have jingles that are managing now in the Tampa Bay region?

Yeah, (sings) “Precision Door, a title you can rely on.’’ Gold & Diamond Supply. “Gold and Di-i-iamond Source.’’ It’s upbeat until Valentine’s Day and then it is a slower model. (Founder) Steve Weintraub was one particular of the very very first folks that gave me an possibility to do his stuff. … A single of the other individuals that performs all the time is “1-800-we-r-open up, Acree air.’’

How did the Bucs’ battle music appear about?

I understood they required anything, and I realized how to generate it, so I wrote this piece and I brought it in to the promoting director. His identify was Bob Very best. Actually fantastic male. … (He claimed) “I enjoy what you did, Jeff, but I’m sorry, the answer is no.’’… He was incredibly variety about it and I informed him thank you incredibly significantly and I introduced it to a regional radio station. His title was Jeff Lawrence. … He commenced playing it on WDAE, which was the sports station, and then men and women went kind of mad, and then all the other stations started out participating in it, so Bob Finest phone calls me back again and says, “Bring that struggle tune again listed here.’’

I by no means bought a penny for it. I hardly ever questioned for a penny. But to sit there in the stadium – I went… to 1 of the playoff online games. … This is decades and a long time ago, the first successful time. And they were actively playing my music on that old scoreboard, and people today have been singing along with it. But I was sitting down with Jimmy Buffett, who’s an previous mate of mine, and he was with Glenn Frey (founding member of the Eagles) … and I explained, “I’m acquiring a lot more airplay this week than you men are.’’

In which do you promote your jingles?

We’re all above the country as far as whichever station group. … There’s mainly 5 major station owners and they quite a great deal very own every single current market. So we would get in with a individual group. We’d do a great work in Roanoke or in Richmond – which I just did past week – and we would go into the station and I would pretty much sit down with the consumer, acquiring no thought what I was likely to generate.

But they would tell me about their businesses…. (I would) choose their data even though they talked and appear up with a 30-second plan. And I would occur into the home and I would sing to them their new jingle, or with any luck , their new jingle. And they typically, nearly inevitably… it is often like,“Wow!” …

From there we did a single Television set station, then two in the team, then 11 in the group and ultimately it grew into a pretty prosperous jingle enterprise.

What does a jingle do for a product?

It lets you bear in mind the item. You cannot train them a whole bunch of things about exactly what the new sandwich is going to be, but you can get them to don’t forget “two all-beef patties.”… A friend of mine wrote a jingle – this was decades ago in New York, and he brought it into a major company that taken care of a vehicle dealership. And it went like this: “bump-bump, the heartbeat of The united states, bump-bump.”

He waited a couple of months. He under no circumstances listened to back. 1 of these committee selections that no one truly desired to make. And he introduced it to Chevy and they acquired that and it ran eternally. The Heartbeat of The us, today’s Chevrolet. So what it does is it assists you to remember the product or service, normally in a beneficial or much more uplifting light-weight.

For far more information and facts, go to www.jeffarthur.com .