Ex-Wailer Gets Up, Stands Up in Court

[Scotch]

Re: Ex-Wailer Gets Up, Stands Up in Court

Re: "Barrett, now in his 60s and the father of no less than 52 children, 52 !!!!"

I suppose that's why they call him "Family Man".

[Scotch]

Re: Ex-Wailer Gets Up, Stands Up in Court

Re: "My Ex-Girlfriend Sister has a daughter by him."

I hope you mean your ex-girlfriend's sister.

[Scotch]

Re: Ex-Wailer Gets Up, Stands Up in Court

Re: "All one has to do is listen to the Wailers' material recorded with [the HIGHLY over-rated] Lee 'Scratch' Perry and compare it to what they immediately there-after laid down with the brothers Barrett. TWO different worlds. A quantum LEAP forward that was truly international in flavour and scope."

To my ears the greater difference in sound came with Island Records, and it seems reasonable to me to say that without Chris Blackwell and his associates there would never have been an international reputation nor any significant royalties over which to fight.

Re: "The best rhythm section in the history of Jamaican music...bar none..."

It is arguable that the Barrett's were the best bass and drums duo, I suppose, but it seems to me Robbie Shakespeare and Sly Dunbar have the greater reputation. The ENTIRE group, however, (not counting the I-Three's and occasional brass and reeds) was a rhythm section.

[Reggae plus]

Re: Ex-Wailer Gets Up, Stands Up in Court

The post Perry recordings were the ones they did for Island. Blackwell gave them money. They went back to Jamaica...Catch a Fyah [and then Burnin] were the results of that 'gamble'. T'was Peter, Bunny, Bob, Carly and Family Man who really found the sound...with a little help from their friends.

Sly and Robbie are legendary...but EVERYBODY took their foundation 'cue' from the brothers Barrett.

Mind you Lloyd Knibb and Lloyd Brevett from the Skatalites CAN'T be dismissed or forgotten.

[evanovitch]

Re: Ex-Wailer Gets Up, Stands Up in Court

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Re:

I'm inclined to think "precedent" an unfortunate choice of words because, legally speaking, tradition and precedent are the same thing. The precedent is not on Barrett's side unless he can convincingly demonstrate his agreement with Marley et al was an exceptional one.

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since oral contracts are binding and if all Ras an Ras r indeed Ras, di truth is on his side....di Barrett breddas living on Jacques Road bak in di days taught alllllll the credible musicians that made the music what it became


dis is the time when Rasta muss show if dem tun Babylon fi real, cause if dem a Ras, all who get cawl fi gi testimony haffi seh di troot an mek di man get him fair share plus interest....

[Pepper]

Re: Ex-Wailer Gets Up, Stands Up in Court

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If the case were to change the way things always have been done, necessarily among those things would be the way the music is actually composed. Do you wish that changed? It would make rock-era pop music much more like classical music.

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No, I was not thinking of music composition. This comment is more on the line of what I was referring to:[ QUOTE ]


It is very rare in pop music for a bass guitarist to be paid royalties for his bass lines.

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Maybe this will change. But probably not.

[Scotch]

Re: Ex-Wailer Gets Up, Stands Up in Court

Re: "No, I was not thinking of music composition. This comment is more on the line of what I was referring to:
'It is very rare in pop music for a bass guitarist to be paid royalties for his bass lines.' Maybe this will change. But probably not."

Ah, well the royalties I had in mind when I said that were "song-writing", that is to say, compositional royalties. It is not at all rare for a bass player to get paid royalties for PLAYING bass lines (in contradistinction to composing them), although studio bass players do generally work for one-time fees. When, for example, Carol Kaye played on Beach Boys recordings, she played the lines Brian Wilson wrote for her, and thus they could not be said to be HER bass lines. Since Carol Kaye is a studio bassist, she was probably working for one-time fees, but had she been working for royalties, she still would not have been collecting them for her bass lines, because, in these instances, they were not her bass lines; they were Wilson's.

Barrett's suit appears to be making several different and distinct claims--which makes the thing fairly complicated--and so far I've only addressed one of them. Bear in mind, that the only copyright law with which I'm familiar is United States copyright law; I'm not familiar with British copyright law. Compositional royalties are set by United States copyright law at a fixed rate--a very tiny one. The record company is obliged by United States law to pay compositional royalties for every copy of a recording sold. On the other hand, United States record companies commonly charge recording costs, which are commonly very high, to the recorded performers, and these are deducted from recording royalties immediately. What this means is that most United States recording "artists" don't receive any recording royalties until they have become extremely successful. So that they can survive, they are paid by their record companies or managers a weekly salary. Because songwriting royalties are so tiny, professional songwriters negotiate with performers a substantial initial fee in addition--which would not apply to Marley (even were he or his record company American) because he performed his own songs, and once a piece has been published or commercially recorded, anyone can legally record it as long as he pays royalties at the set rate. He can also legally perform it in public as long as he pays performance royalties, and this is practically accomplished by requiring of venues annual ASCAP and BMI (performance royalty-collecting agencies) dues. ASCAP and BMI in turn distribute monies to composer members on a statistical basis according to their performance surveys. Venues that refuse to subscribe are denied legal access to ASCAP and BMI pieces.

[Scotch]

Re: Ex-Wailer Gets Up, Stands Up in Court

Re: "The post Perry recordings were the ones they did for Island. Blackwell gave them money. They went back to Jamaica...Catch a Fyah [and then Burnin] were the results of that 'gamble'. T'was Peter, Bunny, Bob, Carly and Family Man who really found the sound...with a little help from their friends."

I had the idea the Wailers had enlisted the Barrett brothers earlier (in other words, first Wailers trio, then Wailers trio with Barrett brothers, then Wailers et al on Island). I could be mistaken. Anyway, Blackwell took the "Catch a Fire" first draft, so to speak, that the Wailers submitted to him back to England and reworked it considerably. Only Marley was along for the reworking (if I remember this correctly), and the others were rather surprised at the result.

[Scotch]

Re: Ex-Wailer Gets Up, Stands Up in Court

Re: "since oral contracts are binding and if all Ras an Ras r indeed Ras, di truth is on his side...."

It rather seems to me that the prima facie evidence suggests that Barrett tacitly gave his consent to Marley's claim of sole compositional authorship of the songs by letting Marley's name appear as sole author on all of the recordings on which it did so appear. Furthermore, given the cultural milieu, Marley's claim of sole compositional authorship would have been an entirely reasonable one. It is difficult for me to see, to this extent, that Marley acted in bad faith.

[Reggae plus]

Re: Ex-Wailer Gets Up, Stands Up in Court

Yes Scotch the Wailers worked and recorded with the Barretts prior to the Island days. THEY were part of the Perry/Upsetters stable and Scratch ran things from behind the control board. It was after the collective group dropped him that things took on a whole new HUE...one that ignited a world-wide response.

I think too that you give Blackwell FAR too much creative credit. He was a middle man and GREAT at marketing his 'product'. He took music in like an inbox...pressed it to vinyl...and sent it out through his outbox. He took calculated 'risks' that worked out favourably MUCH of the time. He had an 'ear' and he had a marketplace that was eager to buy his various wares. A smart guy. But...not necessarily a creative one.

[Blackstar*]

Re: Ex-Wailer Gets Up, Stands Up in Court

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Re: "My Ex-Girlfriend Sister has a daughter by him."

I hope you mean your ex-girlfriend's sister.

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There's no apostrophe s business in patois, Scotch.

[Scotch]

Re: Ex-Wailer Gets Up, Stands Up in Court

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I think too that you give Blackwell FAR too much creative credit. He was a middle man and GREAT at marketing his 'product'. He took music in like an inbox...pressed it to vinyl...and sent it out through his outbox. He took calculated 'risks' that worked out favourably MUCH of the time. He had an 'ear' and he had a marketplace that was eager to buy his various wares. A smart guy. But...not necessarily a creative one.

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I really have no idea how much MUSICAL credit to give Blackwell personally since 1) I've never heard the original ("first draft") "Catch a Fire" recordings (and, for that matter, don't know that they've ever been made available to the public) and 2) even so I wouldn't know how credit should be distributed among Blackwell's various European cohorts and Marley in England. Since Blackwell did produce many or most of the Marley Island recordings, he did have the last musical word on many or most of these, for what that may have been worth. So far as I know, Blackwell was not himself a musician, but then neither were the famous Jamaican roots reggae and ska producers.

I do, however, think it a fair assumption that Blackwell deserves the bulk of the credit for Marley's international fame and riches (such as they may be). Marley and the Jamaican musicians he worked with, including Barrett, obviously had talent, but there is no necessary correlation in the music business between success and talent. Successful musicians are either themselves good businessmen or they are lucky enough to be picked up by good businessmen. (Actually, Marley mostly had a great charisma, and I suspect charisma counts for a lot; I just don't know how to measure it, so I'll have to leave it out of the equation.)

In any case, if Barrett brothers Marley recordings were among the pre-Island Marley recordings I've heard (and now you've got me confused about this), then judging by recordings alone, to my ears, as I've said, the greater difference appears not to be the enlistment of the Barrett brothers but, rather, the move to Island.

[Scotch]

Re: Ex-Wailer Gets Up, Stands Up in Court

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[ QUOTE ]
Re: "My Ex-Girlfriend Sister has a daughter by him."

I hope you mean your ex-girlfriend's sister.

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There's no apostrophe s business in patois, Scotch.

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Hmm....I'm inclined to suppose patois a SPOKEN dialect.

In any case, the apostrophe is now an endangered species in the United States among all sorts of peoples, and its loss will make clear communication dramatically more difficult. It isn't just a matter of showing possession either. I was nearly one-third the way through Allen Forte's "The Structure of Atonal Music", for example, before it occurred to me that by "pcs" Forte didn't mean "pitch-class set" (or, for that matter, "post-coital syndrome"), but "pitch classes", that he'd consistently misspelled "pc's" as "pcs"--and this guy teaches at Yale, for God's sake. (Forte's chief adversary, George Perle, disparages him as a member of "the Yale contingent".)

[Scotch]

Re: Ex-Wailer Gets Up, Stands Up in Court

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Because songwriting royalties are so tiny, professional songwriters negotiate with performers a substantial initial fee in addition--which would not apply to Marley (even were he or his record company American) because he performed his own songs, and once a piece has been published or commercially recorded, anyone can legally record it as long as he pays royalties at the set rate.

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So long as I've gone this far, I'd might as well explain that the term "cover" doesn't mean what a lot of people seem to think it means. Once singer X pays a songwriter a chunk of money for a song and records it, singer Y can then record the song virtually for free (not counting royalties, of course) and release his recording concurrently so as to cut into singer X's sales. Such a recording, and only such a recording, is called a cover. A recording of the song made after singer X's recording has had its run is not a cover. Chubby Checker's rendition of "The Twist" is an example of a cover because it was released very shortly after Hank Ballard's rendition, and with a big push from Dick Clark (who'd masterminded the operation) it quickly swamped Ballard's. "The Twist" became a hit again in 1989, but the 1989 version was not a cover because it did not cut substantially into the sales of Hank Ballard's record, which had eclipsed decades before (nor did it cut into Chubby Checker's, for that matter).

[Blackstar*]

Re: Ex-Wailer Gets Up, Stands Up in Court

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Hmm....I'm inclined to suppose patois a SPOKEN dialect.


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OT: On this board, it's written as well. Look around in the other forums. There's also a discussion on patois as a language in Jamaican Politrix, etc. which you may find interesting.