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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2013 19:42:36 GMT
Stevie Marriott and Ronnie Lane were hopelessly naive and got not a penny in songwriting royalties from their time in the Small Faces. It was only when Kenney Jones funded a forensic examination of the band's paper trail and an audit of the financial records and contracts discovered therein, that he discovered that rights to their material had been sold on and sold on with no obligation to pay royalties ... hence the plethora of cheap and cheerful Small Faces compilations. He eventually was able to extract from someone a whole bunch of outstanding monies, about £250,000 each, I think. It was a shame that Plonk & Stevie weren't around to enjoy it.
And the tale of Badfinger is gothic in its tale of financial horror ... and it ended in the suicide of the 2 main members.
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Post by Richard Marple on Aug 30, 2013 12:19:58 GMT
IIRC The Bay City Rollers managed to be ripped off a lot of royalties due to some dodgy contracts.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2013 14:03:36 GMT
There was a Ch4 documentary, What Happened To The Rollers' Millions. No-one knew where they ended up ... not in Les', Alan's, Derek's, Eric's or Woody's bank accounts that's for sure. Last I knew, there were 2 BCRs, each with 1 or 2 original members, doing the Holiday Camp circuit.
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Post by Richard Marple on Aug 30, 2013 16:58:27 GMT
I did see a bit of that programme, IIRC their boss Tam Paton was supposed to have creamed off some of it.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2013 17:22:08 GMT
Yes, he was as unaccountably wealthy as they weren't. Though naturally, he denied any wrong-doing. I reckon the money went into the pockets of those paid by the band to protect the band members' interests, people who preyed on the vulnerability of none too bright young men who were distracted by constant work, fame, sex, drugs, interviews. It's something that gets forgotten about the bands in the 60's & 70's. The working ones got very little, if any, time off. They were Stones, Beatles, Hollies, Slade, Rollers etc 24/7 ... always on duty. Lots of time to fill, but no freedom to fill it as they would have chosen. No surprise then, that lots of money went missing, those whose it was weren't keeping an eye on it, relying as they did on the honesty of players in a none too honest industry.
The late 70's bands and the 80's bands were better switched on and aware of business issues ... except Bros. Idiots. They were given a choice of something like 10% of gross earnings or 25% of net earnings. They chose the 25% because it was the bigger number, not realising that it was 25% of what was left after "expenses" etc. Those that were in a position to saw to it that there was very little net earnings left for Luke & Matt to take their 25% from. 10% off the top of the vast ocean of money they incomprehensibly generated would have avoided a lot of trouble for them, especially the bankruptcy that living a pop star life on borrowed cash inevitably meant.
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Post by Richard Marple on Aug 30, 2013 19:24:56 GMT
I heard that Bros ran out of money quickly after their fame vanished.
At almost the same time 5 Star sunk all their earnings into a house / recording studio that was a white elephant.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2013 20:35:33 GMT
Bankruptcy Star. UB40 too over a tax bill, tho Ali Campbell bailed before it happened.
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Post by Patrick Coles on Aug 31, 2013 11:40:03 GMT
Yeah many artists were ripped off by either dodgy 'managers' or other 'advisors'etc
Heinz Burt (who was later in very poor health and much needed the cash) sadly never got his due royalties from The Tornados USA and UK chart topping hit 'Telstar'....and that record's royalties (or held up lack of) duly led to a shocking murder crime and suicide in February 1967....
The Moody Blues first management team 'did a runner' with all the money from 'Go Now', while Justin Hayward bitterly regretted his signing up to Lonnie Donegan's 'Tyler Music' (against Marty Wilde's advice) as most of Hayward's really famous songs such as 'Nights in White Satin', 'Tuesday Afternoon' etc were all under that Tyler contract (Lonnie himself had earlier been 'ripped off' when he only got the basic musicians union payment for his massive hit 'Rock Island line')
most members of The Animals never saw much from their hits either, Drummer John Steel spoke of how he was still having to catch the bus when he was at number one in the charts while others were driven by in expensive cars...
while The Fortunes manager was shot dead....!
The Shadows were quite canny however, especially with their 'Shadows Music' publishing company, while Dave Clark was quite on the ball too...
The Hollies had a very murky early managerial set up, with no clear manager early on, and that ultimately led to bassist Eric Haydock's departure in 1966 as he felt they were being ripped off - they later sorted themselves out by getting that much better 'Leasing back' deal with EMI (hence: 'A Hollies Recording' from later 1966 onwards) - a similar proposed deal was apparently rejected by EMI later re The Shadows hence they relocated to Polydor in 1980.
Badfinger's tragic story should be REQUIRED reading for every young musician...they were mega naive in 'assuming' they were being looked after, sadly this was not the case....and we all know what that led to in 1975 and 1983 respectively
The Beatles, most notably Lennon & McCartney got rather ripped off re Northern Songs, where others got a hefty slice of THEIR earnings (I think they only got about a measly 25% of the royalties !) ...hence Paul being so 'business aware' in later years...Brian Epstein looked after them more than many managers...but he could have demanded ALOT more re the films etc from United Artists once they broke in America,
Ray Davies wrote that song 'The Moneygoround' on the 'Lola' album about The Kinks financial nightmares...even 'naming names' !!
Was Brian Jones shock death 'linked' in any way to his exit from the Rolling Stones group...and then wanting his slice of the cake ? - we can only guess and will probably never know the full truth ...
When it comes to the money, it's a very murky world indeed....
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Post by Deleted on Sept 1, 2013 8:48:10 GMT
Epstein signed away 90% of the merchandising rights to 5 strangers. It was re-negotiated, but after the initial flurry of sales. The damage had been done. He never negotiated advances for the band either. Before the meeting about their first film, the producer, Walter Shenson, thought to himself that he'd negotiate on the basis of the Beatles getting 25%. He started out by asking Epstein what figure HE had in mind. Epstein said he'd not go lower than 7.5% ... No wonder Macca had no time for him. The last contract Epstein signed with them, in 1967, gave him a percentage (poss 25%) of their income for many years after the contract's expiration. They didn't know. Klein, who was supposed to sort it all out for them, deliberately made muddy waters even more obscure to his own advantage.
The Beatles were ripped off in so many ways by so many people, that when Apple finally got sorted, Neil Aspinall was very insistent in charging top dollar for product and being very very wary about what got released and what didn't. He was one of the few honest people surrounding them but wasn't richly rewarded for his honesty.
Allen Klein got a million advanced to The Stones, but it was channelled through to Nanker Phelge USA, his company set up in the States, not Nanker Phelge, their company. They didn't think the difference was significant. They had to ask for their money and Klein let them have it THEIR money, only on a loan basis. They got out of the contract in the end, but they lost control of their 60's copyrights, including songs written at that time but recorded later e.g. Loving Cup (it was debut'd at Hyde Park, 1969).
Brian Jones, in the first flush of fame, got Eric Easton to give him £5 a week more as he was "the leader". That soon got gone. When he was fired from the group, he was offered and accepted, I think, £100,000 as a one-off payment and £20,000 a year thereafter. His death was down to ... well, let's just say it wasn't anything to do with fatty degeneration of the liver, as the coroner's report said ... and it wasn't suicide or misadventure. The guy was murdered, but by whom and why is hidden in the depths of his murky life and also in the police documents that have a 70 year non-disclosure order slapped on them ...
The Hollies were very astute over money, good Lancashire lads lol. Now later on, Graham Nash got himself a cut of very very early Elton John/Bernie Taupin songs, see Phil Norman's Elton for more details on that. In the 80's, in the midst of other more pressing problems, David Crosby was declared bankrupt; Nash bought his copyrights AND his house and kept them for Crosby's use, thus providing him with some income and somewhere to rest his head once he got sorted. Like I said, a good Lancashire lad who looked after his mate.
Ian Hunter, in his book, said that while your average rocker could be seen in an expensive limo, he still lived in a dingey flat and had nothing in the bank and the car was owned by the record company: "you look like a star, but you're still on the dole."
There a book in all this, but it needs to be well written and well researched ...
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Post by markg on Sept 3, 2013 14:24:00 GMT
With Badfinger, I believe they actually were "looked after" when they were with Apple, and (naively) assumed that would continue after they left to join Warners.
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Post by Jeff Lewis on Sept 3, 2013 15:48:13 GMT
With Badfinger, I believe they actually were "looked after" when they were with Apple, and (naively) assumed that would continue after they left to join Warners. From what I can recall from the book, Badfinger changed management to some American wheeler dealer and he vetoed the Apple deal for Warners. Everything unraveled for the group as all the Warners money paid to him to disperse. Badfinger were forced to go cap in hand for their own money while arrange lucrative tours for the band. The group had to sue to get their money back and unfortunately there was spiraling legal and tax bills and Peter Ham killed himself. The Tom Evans suicide was more complex because he was planning a Badfinger reunion.
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Post by Patrick Coles on Sept 3, 2013 18:44:49 GMT
Sadly a disillusioned and emotionally battered Pete Ham became 'boxed in' by umpteen problems, professional, business, & personal and sadly caved in under the strain....
Pete mentioned the American manager guy by name in his suicide note...
In that book 'Without You' it tells of how Tom Evans became very disturbed by Pete's death (Tom was the one who found Pete in his garage), and after a number of later problems re an American tour - during which Tom & another guy apparently had to hide in a house and were reduced to eating cat food !, then had to flee the USA back home...) , and the seemingly endless ongoing business problems etc Tom it seems 'opted out' (I read he had a very acrimonious argument on the phone with a colleague the night before he died) - Tom was also very upset by the death of John Lennon in 1980 which probably also contributed to his state of mind....
the cover of their last Apple album 'Ass' - a donkey wearing headphones being 'lured' by a big hand in the sky offering a large carrot - is meant to reflect their misgivings about being lured away from their percieved spiritual home of The Beatles record company Apple ( which by 1975 was then fast collapsing and jettisoning other artists like James Taylor, Hot Chocolate, etc) - hence Pete's 'Apple of My Eye' song beginning with; 'Oh I'm sorry but it's time to move away...' - to the more corporate Warners...
where a large advance of Warners money duly went missing - Badfinger certainly never saw any of it - causing Warners lawyers to advise them to pull the new album; 'Wish You Were Here' album OFF the market just as it was picking up initial healthy sales...
Tom's cutting song 'Hey, Mr.Manager' on 'Head First' (1975- but left unissued at the time due to Pete's death & only finally issued in recent years) refers to how the manager was ruining his life too...('Head First' cover of an open mouthed Lion was meant to depict what they were diving 'Head First' into....!), while Pete's song 'Keep Believing' was for disillusioned bandmate Joey Molland who had by then quit the band...
Tom & Joey Molland HAD already reformed Badfinger circa 1979 and cut two albums; 'Airwaves' (on Elektra records) & 'Say No More' but the reunion largely faltered with only a minor USA hit in Toms' lovely song; 'Lost Inside Your Love' (a couple of newer bandmates quit just as 'Airwaves' came out, hence only Tom & Joey are pictured on the album cover), they deserved to do so much better.
it's an unbelievably sad story....yet underneath the sad 'shadow' of the tragic tale the music of Badfinger itself, is quite superb, brilliantly played & sung, and often very sunny and uplifting !
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Post by Deleted on Sept 4, 2013 8:21:37 GMT
The Gibson SG guitar that Pete played was given to him by George Harrison, George having used it 1965/66 sessions and on the Paperback Writer/Rain promo films (all of them) and on the Lady Madonna promo too. It's nice how a lot of guitar swapping went on: Gary Moore owned Peter Green's Les Paul, the Gretsch that Townshend smashed on TOTP 5:15 was a gift from Joe Walsh; George H's Les Paul was given to him by Eric Clapton ... to name but a few examples. But this is now so far off topic ... sorry.
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Post by Tony Walshaw on Sept 8, 2013 7:50:17 GMT
With a lot of artists, were their earnings being spent before they saw them? Recording fees, touring bills (hotels, cars, planes, food, hospitality, entourage members etc). When they were in the midst of this, they never paid for anything - it was all laid on. When the hits began to recede, or perhaps they moved on to perceived 'new projects', the money they expected to be there was not.
Didn't the parents of the Small Faces meet Don Arden and ask them where their monies were? And Arden replied to the effect that they'd already spent it.
It does seem that money artists make often comes from astute business deals for their later work, and not for the work that they are most famous for.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 8, 2013 9:04:06 GMT
Don Arden told the Small Faces' parents that their sons were all drug addicts and had spent their money feeding their habits ...
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