Posted in: Recording by tryone on June 5th, 2009 | 2 Comments
The name games of artist and writers.
When looking at Motown catalogues. There seems to be alot of clarification to who did what. How this was done. Writers writing under alias at the label. While also writing under their own names. Was this done to fool Internal Revenue, or to cheat artists out of their contractual royalties. Stevie Judkins, which is Stevie Wonder.
Davis Ruffin, who was David Ruffin. Diane Ross, we know as Diana. William Stevenson went by a different name. What was Gordy purpose in these aliases. Writers getting credit for other writers songs. And now Universal has the task of correcting all these Gordy reign games.
If someone should ever write a good Gordy biography. Please don’t be ashamed to tell the truth. Gordy’s not going to come completely honest in things. He was going fire Stevie Wonder, until Sylvia Moychallenge Gordy, to let her and others write for him. Did I say fire? Didn’t Gordy claim, he fired Florence Ballard. So, slowly the dictator showing his color. It a given, The temptations didn’t fire David Ruffin. Gordy fired Ruffin, and use the naives of Otis to accept the blame.
As I recalled. During the late seventies. Gordy was going to claim the name the Temptations, and replace Otis with all new members. It’s on record. It took Smokey Robinson to step in and reach a peaceful solution to this scrabble.
Image via Wikipedia
Image via Wikipedia
tryone June 21st, 2009 at 7:46 am
I owe Berry Gordy an apology to some extent. I now remember George Treadwell having the Drifters on salary. So Gordy wasn’t no different than Treadwell. As I recall he fired the old drifters to replace them with the 5 crowns in which Ben E. King was a member. So groups on salary barely getting paid isn’t something new. Gordy just make it a dirty thing to do. Because he listed his groups as members of the Motown employees Corporation. Good ole Smokey, vice president under him. Probably got shafted too. Just afraid to do check and balance. Oh, that’s another story. I forgot I’m here to apologize.
tryone July 17th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
It seems all managers had a cheating heart mostly except Buck Ram who manage the Platters. He was great from reading about him during the Tony Williams years.
Setting up the group as a corporation and assisting them as being share holders. But Gordy was just a little smarter than his artist. It seems Brian Epstein and Allen Klein was in the Book Of cheating economics on their artists.
Sure if it wasn’t for the managers the acts wouldn’t became known. But people just wants to be treated fair.