Newspaper and magazine articles featuring Rod Lauren
Time
February 8, 1960
In the February 8, 1960, edition of the weekly Time magazine, with Venezuela’s stoic President Betancourt gracing the cover, headlined “Music” and buried in the back pages with other odds and ends from the world of entertainment were a few paragraphs under the subtitle “Pop Records,” accompanied by a photo of Rod Lauren giving his voice a workout:
Not long ago, the thinkers on the RCA Victor staff were invited to invent a name for a new teen-age pop singer. Among the suggestions were “Erpsil Clevinger,” “Ellie Oopman,” “Cahn Edison” and “Rod Reel.” None of these quite filled the bill, but the company soon hit on one that did – ”Rod Lauren.” Last week, big as life, Rod was climbing the charts with a pop hit called If I Had a Girl, having almost forgotten the fact that his real name is Roger Strunk.
With another record on the way and his first movie contract already signed, 19-year-old Singer Strunk-Lauren is the solidest new prospect in the teen-age market since Fabian uttered his first gosling cries. He is also an example of how a record company can create a singer out of next to nothing. Roger was a small club performer with an instrumental group called The Buddies when RCA spotted him on the West Coast last summer and signed him.
The company budgeted $50,000 to launch Rod’s first disk, bombarded dealers with promotional material, emphasizing the sullen good looks the kids are supposed to go for. For six weeks Rod toured the country wooing the jocks, bouncing from teen-age dance to teen-age dance, and occasionally refreshing himself from one of the inspirational books he always carries with him, e.g., The Greatest Thing in the World1Written by the Scottish Christian evangelist Henry Drummond late in the 19th Century, it remains a popular tract more than 130 years since its first publication. (love, naturally).
No rock ‘n’ roller, Lauren delivers his ballads in a nappy, relaxed voice with the meticulous articulation and slightly teary quaver that Johnny Mathis made popular. Not the greatest thing in the world, but not too bad for a 19-year-old who was almost called Ellie Oopman.
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2 responses to “Rod Lauren In Print”
I have some of the songs he recorded at Chancellor Records on a CD. Poor quality sound, and the songs were certainly not as good as the songs on his RCA album.
Do you think his RCA work will ever be available on a CD? I am old fashioned, and that is my preferred way of listening to music.
I have contacted Sony Music (which controls the old RCA Victor catalog) about obtaining the rights to do a reissue. We’ll see what happens!
DJ