Balford Henry on destitute artistes - Time to start taking care of business

Bob Andy

THE PROBLEM of taking care of the numerous veteran artistes and musicians who are finding it difficult to survive, after years of contributing to the development of local music, is not unsolvable.

The fact is that most of these artistes wrote their songs and are due, in total, millions of dollars from various royalty collection sources around the world. However, many of them have been unable to access the kind of legal assistance and business advice that they need to deal with the problem.

Many of us are tempted to pass off the problem as a product of their ignorance. Instead of advising themselves on protecting their rights they rushed into recording songs, satisfied merely with hearing their voices on the radio and showing no concern for remuneration, so why shouldn't they pay the penalty!

That might have been so, but it is not as simple as it looks.

Bob Andy, probably Jamaica's best-ever songwriter and one of the most prolific recording acts of the 1960s, who even headed the very premature Caribbean Copyright Organisation (CCO) in the 1980s, told us Thursday that he finds it hard to earn from his work, despite his wide knowledge and experience of copyright.

Andy's best pay days have come from: a cover of his Impossible Love by UB40 on their Labour of Love II CD a few years ago; a local court action against Penthouse/Sonic Sounds over the use of his Fire Burning song/rhy-thm; and royalties from two songs covered by Barrington Levy, Too Experienced and My Time.

The industry still marvel that Theophilius Beckford died, tragically, earlier this year, without even knowing whatever happened to the licensing of his major hit, Easy Snappin', to a major London advertiser to promote a brand of jeans.

There are so many stories about people who wrote and recorded songs which have made other people extremely rich, but who were never able to benefit from their success of their work.

Incidentally, the issue of royalty reform was one of the main topics at the last annual Rhythm and Blues Foundation awards ceremony at the Manhattan Center in New York.

Royalty reform concerns how veteran artistes are remunerated for their work by the record companies. For example, many R&B acts in the United States, between the 1940s and 1970s, signed recording contracts that paid them royalties of three per cent or less for their recordings, reducing them to an extremely thin slice of the billions of dollars earned by the US music industry annually.

This issue has become especially important in an age where new technology, like Compact Discs, have led to the resurgence of vintage music in new formats over the past two decades. But, the artistes are still limited to the same poor benefits they ignorantly signed for two or three decades ago.

Interestingly, at the R&B Foundation ceremony Berry Gordy, founder of the famous Motown Records label, came out in support of the idea.

At the function he donated US$750,000 to a fund to help early R&B artistes with medical and other expenses. The fund will be operated in conjunction with the existing Doc Pomus Fund operated by the Foundation.

Gordy's support of the efforts comes at a very critical time, when his Motown catalogue, as well as a number of other R&B catalogues, are being taken over by the Universal Music group and are expected to be further exploited by the company.

Royalty reform has already been instituted in a number of other major music companies, including Sony, MCA, EMI, Time Warner and Atlantic, who have generally increased these royalties to the artistes to about 10 per cent.

These developments in the United States make us aware that ignorance and poor judgement is not unique to our artistes or our music industry, as is the resultant penury which has affected many of these artistes in their later years.

It is notable that the veteran R&B artistes can now obtain health and life insurance, as well as pension benefits, if they earn at least US$7,500 per year. With the recent improvements to their royalties many of them, including people like Ruth Brown and Lavern Baker, have been able to get life-saving medical assistance in recent times.

One wonders whether any of our vintage acts are earning from the re-release on their CDs and singles and what is the level of earning, if any?

We also wonder whatever happened to those plans for developing Jam World into a base for training and practice in entertainment skills announced by the Minister of Local Government, Youth and Community Develop-ment in 2000 And, incidentally, does anybody remember that proposal to consider making Bob Marley a national hero. Seems like all is forgotten, at least for the time being?

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