Talk:Payola/Archives/2019

$22,000 claim
The main page currently says "Phil Lind of Chicago's WAIT, disclosed in Congressional hearings that he had taken $22,000 to play a record." And includes a supporting reference to a book by Richard Campbell.

I think the supporting reference is likely to have it wrong.

That same $22,000 figure can be found in a contemporary article, in the Nov/16/1959 Billboard Magazine, page 3, at https://books.google.com/books?id=9wcEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA1&pg=PA3. The article recaps a broadcast interview between Lind and an unnamed owner of a small record label. The label owner described the payout three DJ's had demanded of him -- $200/week, $100/week, and a 2% share in his company. The label owner estimated that total cost at (drumroll) $22,000. Not from one DJ, but three. And not paid. Presumably none of those DJs was Lind.

It would be quite a coincidence if the same $22,000 figure were offered to Lind himself for one song. More likely that Campbell has intermingled events that occurred 45 years before his book.

It's also possible that Lind made up the interview, and that Lind made up his congressional testimony, and the $22,000 was a number Lind liked to use when he made stuff up.

In any event, if he testified before Congress, wouldn't his testimony exist in the congressional record? That would be a more reliable reference for the claim.