Juggy Gayles, Song Plugger And Record Promoter, Dies

NEW YORK-Juggy Gayles, a colorful music industry figure who was a master of the arts of song plugging and record promotion, died Jan. 17 at the Parker Jewish Geriatric Institute in New Hyde Park, N.Y., after a long illness. He was 87.
Gayles-a native of Brooklyn, N.Y., whose real name was George Resnick-started his career as a song plugger in the 1930s with such New York-based publishing companies as Irving Berlin Music and Remick. In those days, song plugging largely centered on building credibility with singers and bands so that they would expose his companies' songs during live performances at concerts and on radio.
Eventually, as recording emerged as the chief vehicle for promoting a song, Gayles switched to record promotion and became one of the industry's best-known record promotion men. His connection with rock'n'roll was established via an early friendship with DJ Alan Freed, the late pioneer in spreading the rock'n'roll message to a white radio and live concert audience. Gayles also ran his own publishing company. One of his copyrights, "The Hucklebuck," was particularly successful.
Gayles' career at Atlantic Records, starting in the 1960s, saw the label's fortunes rise from a successful R&B and jazz label to a powerhouse rock label, with such acts as the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin. After Atlantic, Gayles returned to independent promotion.
In the early '80s he operated, along with its founder Will Socolov, the now defunct Sleeping Bag Records, a New York-based dance/R&B label that had success with such acts as EPMD, Nice, Smooth, Mantronik, Joyce Sims, and Dhar Braxton. Gayles' son, Ron Resnick, was also involved in the company.
Gayles was also a longtime member of the music industry unit of B'nai B'rith and served as an officer of the group.
Bruce Lundvall, chief of the Capitol classics and jazz division, says that Gayles was "one of the colorful characters of the old school. I miss the spirit of people like that. He loved music most of all. He was full of ideas for promotion. We need more of his kind than suits."
"He was one of a breed of men who were unique characters in the music business," says Joel Dorn, owner of New York-based jazz label 32 Records, who knew Gayles as a jazz DJ in Philadelphia and, later, as a jazz producer at Atlantic Records. "I learned a million tricks from him to use when I went out on the road promoting my records. You just learned so much hanging around guys like Juggy."
Though small in stature, at about 5 feet 5 inches tall, Gayles was also known as a tough, outspoken fellow when the occasion called for it. "I remember at poolside at a convention when a guy, at least 6 feet 4 inches [tall], thought that Juggy had insulted his girlfriend," Dorn recalls. "Juggy went up to his room, put on his shoes and socks, to get traction I suppose, and returned to the pool in his shoes and bathing suit and forced the guy to back off."
Of his early career, music legend Jerry Wexler, a partner in Atlantic Records, recalls in his 1993 tome, "Rhythm And The Blues: A Life In American Music," that "no one had greater rapport with big-band leaders than Juggy Gayles. Juggy was the Eddie Stanky, the Charlie Hustle of song pluggers. He was close to Sinatra, Nat Cole, and Woody Herman . . . Everybody loved Juggy . . . His bibles were Billboard and the Racing Form . . . He didn't read books, but if they gave out degrees in song plugging, he'd have a doctorate."
Besides his son, Gayles is survived by a daughter, Jackie Cowit. Rudy Gayles, his wife of more than 60 years, died last September. Funeral services were held Jan. 19 at Sinai Chapels on Horace Harding Boulevard in Queens, N.Y.