Previously in the book: After traveling with dance bands as a trumpeter and serving in World War II, Hal Neely graduated from University of Southern California with three degrees. He began working for Allied Recording Company.
What fascinated me was the matrix department and how the sound on the original studio master grooves was transferred to copper master ridges, then to eight nickel plated stamper (ridges) for insertion into a big press machine with the A side on top and the B side on the bottom. The hot pressed record was taken out by the female press operator, crammed, and placed on a spindle to cool. Then it went to inspection and insertion into the paper sleeve. A good operator–on the bonus system–could produce 600 to 800 pressings per shift.
The biggest problem was the small imperfections that would appear in the grooves of the “mother” creating tics and pops. Matrix would have to produce a new “mother.” The lab had a 1000 power scope. I could look at the groove– knowing music and frequencies– and figure out a system wherein I could repair many of the clicks and pops on the “mother” using Mary’s orangewood fingernail sticks. The process was revolutionary, saving time and processing costs.
Mr. O’Hagan was in the lab several times and said, “Hello and how are you doing?”
I waited and learned. One Thursday morning I got a call from Mr. O’Hagan.
“Hal, go home, put on a suit and meet me at my office at Allied as soon as you can.”
I did. We went in his car, a big new Cadillac, and all he told me was, “We have a problem” and no more. We drove to the office of the Kirk Bennett advertising agency which represented Reverend Fuller’s “Gospel Hour,” the Sunday morning broadcast on ABC. It was one of Allied’s best accounts.
Radio Recorders picked the “live” ABC broadcast and transferred it on line and cut a 16-inch transcription master and sent it to Allied for rush processing-pressing-shipping to radio stations around the world on Wednesday for a one-week delay of the broadcast. It was the largest, most popular religious program on the air at that time.
We walked into the Bennett agency’s board room. Seated around the huge desk were twelve stern-faced men all dressed in black suits– always a council of twelve.
Mr. O’Hagan stood and said, “I am late for my flight to Washington. This is Mr. Hal Neely, our sales manager. He will discuss your problem.” And he was out the door.
The Sunday “show master” from Radio Recorders had become contaminated in Allied’s plating solution, and we had to start over. We had lost some time. I had heard about the problem, had some knowledge of what had happened.
“Gentlemen, I don’t have all the facts, but I’ll go back to the plant and be back here in ASAP.”
A problem: my car was at Allied. Pauline, Mr. Bennett’s assistant, offered to take me to the plant, wait with me and bring me back.
Allied had been able to ship most of the overseas transcriptions on late Wednesday but had to hold a few which were shipped Thursday morning. There was still a good chance they would arrive on schedule. I reminded the meeting that there was no play date on the transcriptions. The stations at the worst could replay an old file broadcast. My explanation was accepted. It never happened again.
Pauline had a whisper from Mr. O’Hagan before he left.
“Take Hal back to Allied after the meeting.”
When I walked in, Mr. O’Hagan’s secretary greeted me and said, “This is your new office, Mr. Neely.” I met my sales department staff, Mildred Hemphill and Dee Beswick.
When Mr. O’Hagan got back from Washington he said, “Good job, Hal. Now I suggest you familiarize yourself with all our customers and when you think you are ready, hit the road and visit some of them.”
I hit the road the next week. I drove my own new car– had worked out a schedule with Mildred. The plan was to work my way down into Texas, up to Nashville, then on to Cincinnati. We would decide what/where next from there. I was to call Mildred every few days to see if she had a message for me.
Mildred and I worked out the first trip to visit clients and get acquainted in Tucson, El Paso, San Antonio, Laredo, McAllen, Brownsville, Houston, Dallas, Nashville and Cincinnati. I was on my own. Old and new business. In San Antonio I checked in at the Hotel San Antonio to find a telegram from Jim O’Hagan: “Stop eating in hamburger joints and sleeping in fleabag motels.” Nuff said. From then on I went first class.
The southern trip was excellent. The clients were all happy to meet someone from Allied. No big problems. I was alone, would spend time during the day with clients, drive to the next town at night and check into some good small hotel or motel and out early the next morning. I did well and enjoyed my job. In Pharr, Texas, I got to see and say hello to an old Lyons neighbor, the Youngs, who had watched me grow up.
Nashville was where the Grand Ole Opry was founded in 1925 and was on the radio live every Saturday night. I knew some of the artists from my band days in Hollywood– several were old friends now living in Nashville. In the music business you had a lot of friends when working together, then you did not see each other for years but stayed friendly. I went to Tootsie’s Bar in the alley behind the Grand Ole Opry that Saturday night.
One of Allied’s biggest and best customers was the ZIV/WORLD Company. It was the production office for “I Led Three Lives” and “The Cisco Kid” radio and television shows, and their “WORLD Transcription Library” was based in Cincinnati.
I checked into the Gibson Hotel and went out to ZIV/WORLD on a courtesy call and to meet their operational people. Syd Nathan and his King Records Group, which was the No. 1 rhythm and blues label in the country, was only a few blocks from ZIV in the little town of Norwalk, a suburb of Cincinnati. King had its plant studio etc. all in one location and a group of four connected buildings: a complete operation. When Syd needed additional pressings to meet King’s sales he pressed in a plant in Hollywood, one in New Jersey– not Allied. I wanted some of his business.
I drove to King’s operations. Its water cooling tower, a big garbage bin, a small house and two cars were in the parking lot. A beat-up old car and a new big Buick. Strange. I went to the first door which opened into the boiler room/the pressing plant with about 50 presses, all idle. No one around. I found a small door marked office with a narrow flight of stairs. I went up, went through a door on the left into his set of offices. No one there. Inside a private office I saw a fat old guy with thick-lensed glasses sitting behind a half oval desk shaped like a 45 record. He was chomping down on a big fat cigar.
“Who the hell are you?”
“You don’t know me,” I replied. “I’m Hal Neely, sales manager for Allied Record Manufacturing Company.” I handed him my card.
“I’ve heard of you. Sit your ass down.”
“I see you are down.”
Nathan only grunted. “Think you might be able to help us?”
“I don’t know, but I could try.”
I went down into the matrix department where all three modal parts were made (master, mother, stamper in a special chemical solution bath) by an old guy named Walter who always had a lit cigarette hanging from his lips. I guessed the problem. I had seen it before at Allied with the Reverend Fuller’s Gospel Hour. The cigarette ash had dropped into the bath and contaminated it. That tank would have to be drained, cleaned out, and a new solution constructed. Not hard but it had to be done before any new metal parts could be made. I met with Walker and Ray Sipe, the pressroom manager, and then went up to talk to Syd. This just might be the “door” to my getting some of his pressing business.
After we discussed the problem, Syd said, “Hal, can’t you stay a day or so to help me?”
“I’m sorry, Syd, but I’m scheduled out tomorrow for New York.” It was a little fabrication since I wanted first to go see my brother Sam and his wife Harriet who lived in Middletown, a few miles north of Cincinnati. We talked some more.
“Come out to the house. Zella will fix us some supper, and you can stay tonight in our guest bedroom.”
Unbeknownst to me, Syd had sent Bernie Pearlman and Bob Ellis, his two “leg” men, down to the Gibson Hotel. They checked me out, picked up my car and drove everything out to King. We got to Syd’s house, a huge four-bedroom house with a pool/dressing room/toilet/big garage, and I met Zella Bridges. She and Syd were not married, but both had been married before. Zella had a daughter Beverly, and Syd a son Nat, both living with them, each in their own bedroom. Nat unloaded my stuff from Syd’s car and put it all in the back guest bedroom which from that day on was “Hal’s room.”
Syd spent most of his time in a huge room/office/den off the kitchen. The large living room and formal dining room had sliding glass doors opening out to the pool area. In the basement was a large bar and party room, storage, and laundry facilities. The house was in the affluent Jewish section in northern Cincinnati. He spent many of his evenings at the downtown Jewish Club. Syd loved the Cincinnati Reds baseball team. I stayed all week. We made the deal. Allied would press all of King’s extra records when they needed them. I would help him—he would help me. Mr. Broadhead agreed. Good deal for both of us. Syd, Zella and the kids became very close to me. That was another “beginning for me.” I was in Cincinnati at least once a month. I prevailed on Syd and Zella to get married. I stood up for Syd at the wedding ceremony. They adopted Beverly and Nat. Syd Nathan was like a surrogate father to me from 1949 until he died in 1968. He became another of my personal mentors and inspirations alongside Lawrence Welk and Count Basie. Zella Bridges Nathan became like the sister I never had.
From Cincinnati I went on into New York. Syd owned a four-story brownstone on 54th Street off Broadway. The ground floor was the King Manhattan branch. Its New York office and one-room bedroom were on the second floor. I could stay there if I wished. I called Jim O’Hagan, and we decided that I had been on the road long enough. It was time to come home. I drove back by way of St. Louis, Kansas City, Denver, and Las Vegas.
After I returned to Los Angeles, Mary and I drove to Northern California. Two of Allied’s clients were in San Francisco: Tommy Tong’s Chinese Record Company and the John Wolfe Studios, which was the first magnetic tape recording studio in America.
Mr. Tong’s wife was the sister of Chiang Kai-shek. Mr. Tong was mayor of Chinatown. They were both American citizens, highly recognized for their contributions as Americans. Mr. Tong made his records on old 78 RPM shellac, easily breakable. Both the local Chinese and those in China would only buy one record at a time and order again when it was broken. Mary and I were guests at the Tongs’ home for dinner and at the Chinese Opera, an all-night affair. They were nice people. Mary and I stayed at Mark Hopkins Hotel.
Much has been written in history of Adolf Hitler’s personal messages to the German people which were a “closely guarded top-secret.” They had been recorded on the first/only magnetic tape recorder which ended up in the John Wolfe Frisco studio. Wolfe’s partner, an American Army officer in Germany, was court-martialed for shipping the machine in parts to his mother from Germany without declaring the same to the U.S. Army. Yet this machine—Hitler’s purloined magnetic tape recorder, reassembled in Wolfe’s studio–was the prototype for Ampex and others to follow.

(Author’s note: Italicized text indicates material is Hal Neely’s own memoirs and reflect his recollection of events.)