Business is business, you know? You could have come to me earlier. “It’s cutting this week, we need to clear it ASAP!” At that point we had the leverage, so we got a little more of a percentage. We had a situation last year when there was a song on Broad City, actually, and the song had a sample of ours but nobody had told anyone until. Nobody tries to sneak sample stuff by anymore. If something was used without permission or negotiation, you were on top of it. We print out a statement that’s, let’s say, 500 pages, and it adds up to $13.Ĭhess always had one of the strongest legal teams in the game, too. Statements come in from sources like Pandora, and its micro-pennies. There’s always been a lot of collusion between publishing arms and terrestrial radio, but of course those distribution models are changing entirely. I’m on the phone, I’m hustlin’, you know? And we all need to share. On the other side of the table, I wanna be compensated just as much. I am, on the more money for the publisher side. It was the ’50s, entertainment law didn’t exist, there were no industry lawyers or record brains. But at the same token, this was trailblazing. But there was never a lawsuit brought forth. I think it was maybe at play in general, but in terms of royalty disputes or whatever? It’s tough for me to say, I wasn’t there. When you hear those accusations, and you also know how there was no frame or standard for what constituted ethical treatment at the time, what can you say different now? (L-R) Leonard Chess, Marshall Chess, Phil Chess.
And my grandfather just had this serendipitous moment where they meet, and make history, which they didn’t know they were doing at the time. Muddy, Chuck Berry, all these guys escaped the South to Chicago for a better life. We were leaving the shtetl in Poland, a horrible village where they had to use a cow to keep warm. It was this meeting, and we all searched for a better life, it wasn’t about using anyone. This was during The Great Migration, when all the blacks in the South came to Chicago. Along with being the father of rock ‘n’ roll, he was also a devoted family man.” As the family spoke what struck me was the values that Chuck instilled in his children, grand-children, and great-children. “It was a royal send off in true Chuck fashion,” he said, “13 white Cadillacs, police escort, with over 1,000 people attending the service. We wanted to give Jamar a chance to speak on his family’s behalf.Īfter all, Chess Records earned its reputation not only as a seminal blues label with Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Buddy Guy and Willie Dixon but also as a respected R&B label that signed Etta James (and nearly James Brown, Jamar tells me) not to mention redefining rock ‘n’ roll when the Chess Brothers signed Chuck Berry.Īfter Jamar and his father Marshall returned from Chuck Berry’s funeral, he reached out again. There was certainly no precedent for equitable industry practices back then, and it’s always the case in capitalist enterprise that those shaping how an industry operates set that industry up to benefit themselves, first and foremost. But any accusation that the Chess Brothers Leonard and Phil, along with Jamar’s father Marshall, intentionally took advantage of poor, young black artists with racist intent is a question hard to parse from historical context.
0 kommentar(er)
