Editor's note:  Ian Smith is a 17-year-old student at Victoria High School.  He felt The Province should have a record column by a teenager.  Here is his first column.  We would like to know if our readers like it.

    Just what makes a hit record?
   Not more than a month ago, Fats Domino sold a million copies of a record called "I'm Walkin'."  It was backed by a definitely different version of "I'm in the Mood for Love" that did not quite prove to be the epitome of popularity.
   Even so, the fat man made a gold record of the disc.  But as must happen with all records good or bad, the song eventually slipped from the hit parades across the country.  It seemed that "I'm Walkin'" had had its plays.
   But then came Ricky Nelson, of Ozzie and Harriet fame.
   Now there's no doubt that Ricky possesses a reasonable singing voice; it might even be called good.  But no matter what anybody or everybody says, his vocal cords will never match the stylized perfection of Fats Domino's.
    But Ricky didn't care.
   Dead record or not, faulty singing voice or not, the Nelson's boy cut the biscuit anyway.
   And what happened.  Just pandemonium, that's all.
   "I'm Walkin'" by Ricky Nelson is going up the charts faster than a sabre jet with an A-bomb under its tail.  What's more, in all probability it will eventually get higher than Fats Domino's version ever did.

I'm Walkin' - Ricky Nelson

   One might account for this sudden resurgence by pointing to the flip side of Ricky's record--"Teenager's Romance."  Undoubtedly a very popular tune, it still cannot be called the reason for "I'm Walkin's" comeback because it is following, not leading.  "I'm Walkin'" up the popularity polls.
   In other words, "Teenager's Romance" is basking in the reflected glory of the flip side.  So where does one go from there?
   Just why is the record selling?
   If you've got the answer, tell the record companies; they'd like to know.

   When you see the lists of "the week's most popular records" or "the most played hit tunes" do you ever wonder how those tunes got to be hits?  Who discovered them?  Who first performed them in public?  Was the public reaction instant, or was the hit tune a "sleeper," slow to attain popularity?
   These are some of the questions which may not concern you, but which do concern me, week in and week out.  My job, both as musical director of a CBS Radio's weekly musical program and as head of the east coast division for Columbia records popular department, is to pick hits.
   In my time I've been fortunate enough to pick quite a number of successful songs, before they were known.  I've rejected thousand of others.
   HOW DO WE KNOW?  We don't.  We just use all the musical background and experience and imagination we have, and hope that the man on the street and the kids who buy records agree.
   Fortunately, the man on the street and those kids have agreed about some of my discoveries and arrangements of the last few years. . . .  Take the "Song from the Moulin Rouge," and "Valley Valparaiso" and "Love Me or Leave Me," and "Sierra Madre."
   I'M PROUD of having discovered these tunes and having launched them to the public.
   It's probable that radio is responsible for creating most of the big new song hits today.  In the old days, all the song hits came out of Broadway shows.  Gershwin would write a wonderful musical, or Jerome Kern, or Vincent Youmans, or Sigmund Romberg, and hundreds of people would see the Broadway show and come out humming the tunes.  But the biggest hearing these songs could get was eight live performances a week.
   NOWADAYS, with new trends in radio and recordings and the fact that there are over 5,000 accredited disc jockeys in the country, it is probable that a new hit song will be launched with approximately 20,000 performances in its first week.  Each disc jockey, let's say, will give it a minimum of four performances, and the whole country will get to know it immediately.
   The motion picture and musical comedy producers realize the selling power of radio and are anxious to have their good tunes recorded and broadcast even before their productions open.  That's how we have introduced many tunes on Columbia Records which have become bit hits.
   IT'S IMPORTANT also to keep your ears and eyes open for new song trends.  Five years ago, it was a vocalists' world.  The singing records sold best and they sold by millions.  Then came break for conductors like me--the public started to buy orchestral records.
   At this time, several big successful motion pictures were released, and since the audience like the music as well as the pictures, they bought it in record form to play in their own homes--such movie music as the themes from "Intermezzo," "The Third Man," and the theme from "The Moulin Rouge" and from "Love Me or Leave Me."
   LAST YEAR we went into rock-and-roll period, and then a banjo craze.  Right now we are seeing a revival and new interest in calypso.  Next month, next year. . . who can tell?  I can only hope to keep up my end.  And it's fortunate that some hits have become a permanent part of our nation's music, as for example Gershwin's "Embraceable You" and "Clap Your Hands."