Weisman, Herbert, 2006 September 07

This is a Living History Interview with Herbert Weisman, pioneer in the Phonograph Recording Distribution business conducted by Marilyn Somers on September 7, 2006 at the home of Sherry Leircks in Sandy Springs, Georgia. The subject is the interviewee’s life and experiences.

Mr. Weisman was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on September 7, 1918. His father worked in the laundry business and his mother was a homemaker. His father was born in Europe and migrated to the United States. Mr. Weisman moved to Castle Shannon, Pennsylvania when his father bought a grocery store. He went to elementary school at the Holmes School and then attended Schenley High School. They lived in a small house and his parents sometimes had to rent other rooms for their children to stay in at night. Mr. Weisman had many jobs as a child, including working for the Pittsburgh Press, delivering Liberty Magazines, and selling chrysanthemums at the University of Pittsburgh football games. Mr. Weisman also collected and returned Coca-Cola bottles, for which he would get five cents a piece. He and his friends would use this money to rent boats to ride on the Monongahela River. He remembers the air being terrible in Pittsburgh because the steel mills were always running. After graduation, Mr. Weisman attended the University of Pittsburgh for a little while and worked at the Neisner Brothers Dime Store. When Mr. Weisman heard about the attacks on Pearl Harbor, he went to enlist in the Army. They rejected him at first, because of acne, but then accepted him. Mr. Weisman underwent basic training and then went to Officer Candidate School where he was assigned to field artillery and learned about weaponry. After graduating from OCS, Mr. Weisman was relocated to Texas, where he became an aerial observer for the artillery field and directed fire on targets from an airplane. Mr. Weisman married his wife in 1942. They met at a Young Man’s Hebrew Association dance, where they talked all night. He proposed to her while he was in Oklahoma for Officer Training School. They were married in Lawton, Oklahoma. Rosamond traveled many places with Mr. Weisman and stayed in nearby towns while he was in the Army. Soon after the ceremony, Mr. Weisman was called overseas to Manila, Philippines, where he was in charge of two hundred men. After Manila, they landed in Yokohama, Japan where General MacArthur was signing the Peace Treaty. While Mr. Weisman was overseas, his daughter Sherry was born; he first met her when she was two years old. When he got back to the United States, Mr. Weisman went into the record distribution business with his brother-in-law, “OP.” They started Mangold Distributing Company in North Carolina. The first label they worked with was Specialty Label, which was started by Mr. Weisman’s other brother-in-law. They initially dealt with music performed by black musicians. A major point in Mangold Distributing history was when Mr. Weisman convinced MGM Records to let them represent them. After 78RPM records became popular, the record business boomed. Mr. Weisman’s family lived in Charlotte with him. The business boomed even more when 45 RPM records were invented. They began to work with the Marines in Jacksonville and even hired more employees. Mangold represented such artists as Little Richard, Fats Domino, and even Elvis Presley for a time. PlayTapes and 8-Track Cartridges came into fashion and Mr. Weisman remembers 8-Tracks being very popular with his clients. MGM invited him to Los Angeles to pre-screen Dr. Zhivago and then order copies of the soundtrack. Mr. Weisman started a second distributing company, Bertos Sales Company, because Mercury Records would not work with Mangold because they had too many clients. Mr. Weisman was invited to London by Sir Edward Lewis, the owner of London Records, where he ate at the House of Lords on night with the Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones. Mr. Weisman and Rosamond developed a taste for traveling. They went to Cuba twice, Nassau, Hog Island, South America, London, Paris, and China. Mr. Weisman retired in 1987. He has two daughters, four grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. Mr. Weisman feels that he had a very fortunate life, but none of it came easy. He went into the distribution business, with no money, and left his home, where he felt the most secure, to move across the country. When Mr. Weisman was traveling to Puerto Rico with Rosamond, they had a connecting flight in Miami. At the Miami Airport, they were followed by a man and then brought into the basement of the airport and questioned. They were released and admitted to Puerto Rico. Mr. Weisman was reading the newspaper a few days later and discovered that he and Rosamond matched the description of two jewel thieves.