Country Music: "Brought to You By _____"
How odd to see in a recent ad for Foreigner's Nashville concert that the show is being sponsored by the AARP. I had to laugh out loud - rock's dinosaurs are finally getting their appropriate sponsorship. No more trying to be young and hip. Foreigner gave up and accepted the inevitable.
These days it seems as if there has always been corporate sponsorship of music tours. But, relatively speaking, it really hasn't been that long ago when there was no rock major corporate sponsorship at all. Country barn dances such as the Grand Ole Opry always had fairly low-budget stage corporate backers such as Prince Albert tobacco. Martha White Flour backed Flatt & Scruggs on tour. The magic elixir Hadacol sponsored an entire national caravan tour starring Bob Hope and Hank Williams as the headliners. Camel cigarettes sponsored the Camel Caravan of country stars during World War II, touring military bases and hospitals.
But in rock, the first sponsored tour came in 1981, when Jovan Perfume backed the Rolling Stones. There was a huge hue and cry from the rock community, which felt that the Stones had sold out the ideals of the rock revolution. The Stones reply was that they were doing it just to keep ticket prices down, for the people, man. We all know how that turned out.
But you know who the first modern-day big corporate sponsor was? Junior Johnson persuaded the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company to sponsor his team's car on the NASCAR circuit in 1971. The price? Under $100,000.
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William says:
Speaking of Martha White, it appears that one of the most enduring and beloved sponsorships in broadcast history has come to an end. The last Martha White Opry segment aired on January 26, 2008 bringing to end an a run of nearly 60 years since it first sponsored the show in 1948. Requests for information to WSM, Martha White and its parent company J.M. Smucker have been ignored and nobody is talking. If anybody can shed some light on this a lot of Opry fans will be very grateful.