By Vickie (205.188.209.38) on Thursday, February 13, 2003 - 12:56 am:

I was thrilled to see a Verizon commercial tonight with Tammi & Marvin's "Aint No Mountain High Enough" Simply Awesome!!!! Her music is still being used in films and commercials...

Vickie

By Ritchie (62.254.0.8) on Thursday, February 13, 2003 - 03:08 am:

What's Verizon?

By Vonnie (64.12.97.7) on Thursday, February 13, 2003 - 08:53 am:

Ritchie,

Verizon is a telecommunications company. They are a provider of local and long distance telephone services, wireless service,data, Internet and video service. They are one of the original baby bell services that were a spin off of AT&T. When the bell system was broken up in the early 80's,the original New York Telephone merged with New England Telephone and became NYNEX(New York and New England) and the X stood for the unknown factor. NYNEX merged in the 90's with Bell Atlantic and used the name Bell Atlantic. In 2000 Bell Atlantic merged with GTE and became Verizon. The name Verizon(rhymes with horizon),is derived from the Latin term "veritas," which means truth and connotes certainty and reliability; and "horizon" synonymous with forward thinking and visionary.

I am proud to say that I am a former employee of these mergers.

Vonnie

By Common (209.2.55.172) on Thursday, February 13, 2003 - 08:55 am:

Hello everyone,

Is Tammi's family receiving any royalties from this commercial? To be quite frank, I have mixed feelings about sixties songs in general, being used as "jingles". Seems like the advertising agencies have run out of ideas.

Peace!

By Vonnie (64.12.97.7) on Thursday, February 13, 2003 - 08:57 am:

Ritchie,

I forgot to include mention of Verizon's chief spokesperson the famous actor James Earl Jones.

Vonnie

By Ritchie (62.254.0.8) on Thursday, February 13, 2003 - 08:58 am:

Vonnie - thanks. Over here, the song was used at one time for an international parcel delivery service (DHL). Kinda makes sense!

Your explanation of the origin of Verizon reminded me of a famous quote from the 1930s. "Television? It can't have a future - the word's half-Greek and half-Latin".

By Vickie (205.188.209.38) on Thursday, February 13, 2003 - 10:41 am:

I don't know about Royalties Common,
When you think of how long Tammi has been gone,
it is great that her music is being used. I have so many young people contact me that are fans simply because they heard her music in "Step Mom"
and "Remember The Titans" It keeps her name and music out there since she can't...
If it's done in a positive light, it's a good thing..

Vickie

By KevGo (64.115.26.80) on Thursday, February 13, 2003 - 12:27 pm:

Common:
If I may regarding songs in commercials & royalties...

It's up to Motown/Universal to pay the royalties to the artist for the usage of any of their recordings in commercials being that they licensed the use of "Ain't No Mountain.." to Verizon (Verizon's advertising firm pays Motown/UMG who in turn pays Tammi's estate).

Being that Universal Music Group is one of the few companies that do have a strong track record for royalty payments (Etta James said so in her autobiography "Rage To Survive"), I would imagine they would be paying Tammi's estate a decent buck. I can tell you from my experience with licensing music that the more popular the song, the higher the price. So, if you hear a popular Motown song in a commercial for telephone service or in the films Vickie mentioned that have big box-office names, you can bet these parties paid a good chunk of money, which in turn means higher royalty payments.

Kevin Goins - KevGo

By cleoharvey (160.79.83.208) on Thursday, February 13, 2003 - 01:50 pm:

It is a delight to hear that version, Marvin & Tammi are simply sublime. In addition, their version of You're All I Need to Get By is still one of the most wonderful things to come out of Motown. They had magic.

I think only us guys on the East Coast know what Verizon is. LOL!!! They are robber barons who provide phone service. However, I will look more kindly on them because they are using Marvin & Tammi.
Michael

ps: Just think how much money Ashford & Simpson must be making. Their songs are always being used to sell products. I once read that they made in the neighborhood of 2 million dollars because of Whitney Houston's remake of I'm Every Woman and its inclusion on the Bodyguard Soundtrack. And my friend Beverly Ross has supported herself for years on the royalties from "Lollipop," which is included in many compilations and continually used in advertisements. Brothers, don't give up your publishing and royalty rights!

By Eli (151.197.39.241) on Thursday, February 13, 2003 - 02:11 pm:

I have some jingle jangle(over here)

Back in '84 Tony Bongiovi at Power Station produced a series of jingles using Motown songs for Lincoln-Mercury. That day we did Ain't no mountain high enough.
He wanted to get the Funks. He did get Babbitt.
I was on it as was drummer Buddy Williams, pianist Paul Sccaffer of the Letterman show who knew more about methan myself!!
Nick and Val did the vocals and it previewed on the Grammy show that February .

By KevGo (64.115.26.80) on Thursday, February 13, 2003 - 02:46 pm:

Tony Bongiovi! What a name from the past! This is the man who tapped into Motown's engineering & mixing "secrets" and wound up being hired at Motown while still a teenager!
Tony's work is nothing to sneeze at either - he & Meco produced Gloria Gaynor's version of "Never Can Say Goodbye" among the many disco hits that came out of the Big Apple in the 1970s. The Power Station studio was a very popular recording facility here in NYC until technological changes in audio recording (i.e. - computers, MIDI, home studios) forced him to close down in 1998.
Kevin Goins - KevGo

By Common (209.2.55.169) on Friday, February 14, 2003 - 12:51 pm:

Hello everyone,

KevGo: Thank you for the info. I'm glad to hear that Tammi's family will somehow be compensated for her work. It's wonderful to have her music exposed to new audiences but it would be nice that respective artist or their families get some money. Artists have been exploited too long & it's about time someone gets paid besides the record companies! :o)

Peace!