By stephanie (64.63.221.224) on Saturday, March 01, 2003 - 09:59 am:

I have a question for the group. We know that Rhino is the best of the bunch but when it comes to labels like Collectables and others...do artists get any royalties from these labels?

My other question is Rhino Records would be the ultimate place for me to work. How did they get started and they must have a lot of word of mouth advertising because I dont see them advertise that much. I have always had an interest in the background of these reissue labels..
Stephanie

By Eli (151.197.38.173) on Saturday, March 01, 2003 - 10:35 am:

I have received royalties from Rhino and Collectables.
As far as all the others are concerned. forget it!! Goldmine, Ace/Kent etc.. only cater to a specialist market so the monetary renumeration would be very minimal.But even so, there accounting practices are suspect and so is the quality of the product as aa lot of it is taken from vinyl and not the original masters.

By Scratcher (65.132.78.233) on Saturday, March 01, 2003 - 11:02 am:

Writers and publishers are protected by copyright laws and are more likely to get paid than recording artists who are not.

The publisher is responsible for paying the writer; often the publisher is paid by the reissuing company but doesn't pay the writer its share. A fellow who initials are A. T. gets royalties from companies for songs published by his company but never pays the songs' writers anything.

It sometimes depends on the clout of whoever owns the masters as to whether they get paid or not.

I don't know anybody, artist or writer, who has received a dime from Goldmine and some others but do know an obscure group who receive royalty checks from Ace Records for songs they recorded and wrote. In their case the companies who owns the masters and the publishing has clout. I also, however, know others who haven't receive anything from Ace.

The master owners and publishing companies don't make a big stink about it because any payments would be low (like Eli said) since these oldies compilations seldom sell many copies.

By R&B (138.238.41.128) on Saturday, March 01, 2003 - 11:47 am:

EIL AS ALWAYS YOUR IMPUT IS GREAT,IN MY COLLECTION I HAVE ALOT OF REISSUES BY RHINO AS WELL AS COLLECTABLE AND OTHERS,BUT SOME OF THOSE OTHERS ARE A TRIP,FOR INSTANCE I HAVE A TWO RECORD SET OF DOOWOP HITS BUT SOME OF THEM ARE FADED OUT HALFWAY THROUGH THE SONGS,LUCKILY FOR ME I ONLY PAID A DOLLAR FOR SOME OF THIS STUFF.

By dvdmike (12.84.120.92) on Saturday, March 01, 2003 - 01:58 pm:

How about Varese Vintage? What's up with them?

By Ritchie (62.254.0.10) on Saturday, March 01, 2003 - 02:08 pm:

Nobody mentioned Sundazed? I have a number of their CDs and they're A1 - especially their O'Jays' Bell compilation.

By Scratcher (65.132.79.45) on Saturday, March 01, 2003 - 03:28 pm:

Reissue companies don't have a contractual agreement with the recording artists only to whoever owns the masters. What occurs too often is the reissue company pays the record company or master's owner who then fails to pay the recording artist for a mutitude of reasons: they signed off on royalties years ago; they haven't recouped yet, greed, etc.

Collectables Records may pay who they're legally suppose to (whether these monies trickle down to the artist is another story) but their packaging is lousy. Often they fail to even include songwriting and publishing information and usually there is no biographical info.

By Mark Speck (65.58.51.143) on Saturday, March 01, 2003 - 03:30 pm:

Hi Stephanie!

Rhino Records was an off-shoot of the Rhino Records store in Los Angeles. Harold Bronson and Richard Foos owned the store and both men were avid collectors. Around '73 or so, they decided to start a label.

Initially, Rhino operated as a haven for novelty acts. Early releases were by such unforgettable characters as Wild Man Fischer, wrestler Fred Blassie, Gefilte Joe and the Fish, and a kazoo band, among others (think of what you would hear on the Dr. Demento show and you have the idea).

Eventually, Rhino acquired reissue rights to a few things here and there--no major label stuff just yet, they first acquired the rights to reissue recordings by the Turtles and the Beau Brummels. The quality of Rhino's reissues was so good that they eventually struck deals with major labels to do reissues.

Rhino later struck a deal with EMI/Capitol for distribution, and later moved under the Warner/Elektra/Atlantic umbrella. These deals worked out well for both distributors, as they used Rhino to do the reissuing work.

Best,

Mark

By dvdmike (12.84.120.92) on Saturday, March 01, 2003 - 03:57 pm:

I used to correspond with Bill Inglot of Rhino several years ago. He even sent me about 100 or so CDs. Bob Irwin of Sundazed does really good work, he researches the tapes and even gives information about what he does. Rhino owns the Atlantic catalog and has reissued some great stuff. I'd like to see them reissue the entire Blue Magic catalog. Bobby Eli told me that WEA is about to issue "Blue Magic" and "Magic Of The Blue" on CD at sometime in the near future. There is so much vintage music that still hasn't been released on CD.

By MEL&THEN SOME (195.219.7.68) on Saturday, March 01, 2003 - 04:08 pm:

Hey Bobby,
well said man.
mel.

By HW (68.37.221.153) on Saturday, March 01, 2003 - 05:36 pm:

By Ritchie (62.254.0.10) on Saturday, March 01, 2003 - 06:04 pm:

Harry -

I think it's taken as read that Motown is the best Motown reissue label :o)

By douglasm (68.113.15.28) on Sunday, March 02, 2003 - 01:33 pm:

This brings up an interesting side question, that we're going to face again as DVD's take over from VHS tape.
If there's a favorite LP not yet issued on CD, what would it be?
Steppenwolf"s first LP comes to mind, because I want a clean copy of "Berry Rides Again", but there have to be a ton of others.

By Fred (152.163.188.68) on Sunday, March 02, 2003 - 02:17 pm:

No label gives artists an accurate count. (Sorry, Harry, but from my experience, UMG is no better than anyone else). There is a very good reason why every royalty audit ever done by an artist turns up money due (and I have done dozens), the system is corrupt.

The real problem for catalog artists is that most reissues would not generate enough in royalties, even if calculated correctly, to pay for an accountant to do an audit, so the errors often go undiscovered. This creates a private and secret windfall for the label.

Rhino's reputation as a good payer has diminished substantially since becoming part of Warner Music Group. All royalty accounting is now handled by Warner personnel and therefore subject to the same shoddy practices they apply to their own artists. Despite the fact that WMG now owns Rhino, they continue to apply a 50% royalty reduction on releases through Rhino as they did when it was independent.

Varese pays and have been willing to make adjustments when errors are pointed out to them, but, again, unless I had found the errors myself I doubt they would have on their own.

Collectibles works both sides of the street. They license material when they can, but occasionally go outside the lines when they feel like it. They also don't care very much who they license stuff from, so they deal with anyone claiming to have the masters whether they are legitimate or not. As a result of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, they have done some notorious deals with bootleggers.

In my experience, Ace/Kent makes an honest effort to find the artists and pay them. Bobby Eli is right in saying that the limited sales on these specialist labels reduce the impact of this policy, but I do know money gets to the artists, no matter how small the amount. Goldmine, on the other hands, bootlegs consistently.

Sundazed is, in my experience, as good as they get on counting and paying.

I have to give special credit to EMI, or specifically to one executive (who unfortunately got fired in December) who went out of his way to find artists who recorded originally for labels that EMI later acquired. EMI actually set up royalty accounts for these artists, but, in several hundred cases, had no way of contacting them. I was dealing with the executive on an unrelated matter when he told me about the accounts. I offered to help out and he sent me the list. Over the next few months, I was able to find nearly 150 of the "lost" artists and arrange for direct payment of the royalties. The amounts ranged from several hundred dollars down to about $40, and in many cases, the EMI checks were the first royalty payments these artists had EVER seen. I made dozens of new friends in the process.

By Jim G (152.163.188.68) on Sunday, March 02, 2003 - 02:42 pm:

Ref. Ace, they've stated publicly that a royalty will be paid to Mrs. Todd Rhodes for sales of her late husband's CD.
Another label that paid artists was the late Saxophonograph/Mr R&B/Jukebox Lil labels out of Sweden, owned by the somewhat eccentric Jonas Bernholm.

By Davie Gordon (193.122.21.26) on Sunday, March 02, 2003 - 02:54 pm:

RE. Goldmine

On many of their CDs they refer to a "Toller
Licensing" inferring that this is some sort of
clearing agency, like the Harry Fox Agency, from
which they license tracks. I've never heard of it
.. has anyone else ? Does it actually exist or is
it, as I suspect, a fictional "fig leaf" ?

Fred,

Thanks for the background info on Rhino / WB.
That's disgraceful deducting 50% of the royalties
because Rhino is being treated as an "outside"
company. I'll bet WB's accountants are on good salaries for that bit of "creative accounting".

By KevGo (64.115.26.80) on Monday, March 03, 2003 - 02:08 pm:

Hey Gang:
Fred's assesment of the reissue scene is right on the money - aside from the efforts colleagues such as Harry Weinger & Leo Sacks have made to make sure the artists get a fair shake.

To expand a bit on Varese Vintage, Cary Mansfield (who also worked with HW on several Motown reissues in the early 1990s)heads up that area and has done a decent job with reissing some fine compilations (Bubblegum Classics) and anthologies from the catalogs of Scepter/Wand (except Dionne Warwick), Shelby Singleton Productions (Jeannie C. Riley's "Harper Valley PTA"), Musicor and smaller esoteric catalogs.

Another small reissue label that is doing fine work is TARAGON RECORDS. Owned by Elliot Goshman, Taragon has issued anthologies by the Fortunes ("Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling Again"), Ruby & the Romantics, the Spiral Starecase, Bert Kaempfert(sp), the Tokens as well as excellent Red Bird/Blue Cat anthology. Goshman likes to use original session tapes for his remastering (complete with studio chatter and countdowns). The result - excellent sound.

As for Collectables, I noticed that they are doing more licensing deals for catalogs from the majors. Could it be that they are trying to go legit?

Brunswick Records have been reissuing their catalog over the past few years and continue to do so when the budgets allow. They've also partnered with music historian David Nathan for the Ambassador of Soul series that features reissued albums by Dionne Warwick (Warner Bros. years), the Sweet Inspirations, Change, Candi Staton, Staple Singers (Let's Do It Again soundtrack).

Finally, there's the Tuff City Music Group, which has reissued recordings from artists ranging from Eddie Bo ("The Hook & Sling") to Trouble Funk as well as D-Town legends the Fabulous Peps & Lee Rogers (D-Town anthologies on vinyl for now - CDs later on this year!). Tuff City will also be reissuing the Sport Records catalog in the fall (Four Sonics, Dramatics, Andre Williams and some productions by Funk Brother Jack Ashford).

As I mentioned before and say it again, folks like HW, Sacks, Brian Chin, Tom Cartwright (EMI) and Dana Smart (Hip-O) do the best they can within the restrictions put forth by the "powers that be". This is why I always say to folks WRITE OR EMAIL THE RECORD COMPANIES DIRECTLY! Trust me - the "P.T.B." and their bean-counters do read correspondence from the consumers.

Kevin Goins - KevGo

By Scratcher (65.132.77.95) on Monday, March 03, 2003 - 04:43 pm:

The original question was do recording artists receive royalties from the various reissue companies. The answer is, except for a very small percentage, no.

Fred stated it right: "the system is corrupt."

The Chi-lites and others sued a major reissue concern and won. Getting the money, however, is another issue. The Coasters have a lawsuit pending now. They found their songs on 96 different CDs issued by a whole slew of companies. They have never been paid one cent or receive any royalty statment.

Companies like P-Vine in Japan contract with whoever owns the masters--the artist is never involved and is more than likely unaware of the deal. Everyone should know at least one artist who work has been reissued; ask them if they're getting paid or receiving statements. I know many (artists) and most of them have never received a royalty check or a statement.

G. C. Cameron has been recording since the late '60s and will tell you point blank that he has never received a royalty check, doesn't know what one looks like.

Qualified entertainment attorneys charge anywhere from $35,000 to $50,000 to audit a recording company's books. These audits can take two years. Needless to say, most artists can't afford to go this route.

Like somebody once said, the recording companies are the pimps and the artists are their...

By Fury13 (12.2.196.17) on Monday, March 03, 2003 - 04:50 pm:

Kev,

If you don't mind saying, who was your contact regarding the master tapes on the Sport material? Jay Johnson of the Four Sonics would be interested in this...

Will the Sport artists see any revenue from the reissue, or are you only obligated to pay the owner of the masters?

Answer me by e-mail if you wish.

By KevGo (64.115.26.80) on Monday, March 03, 2003 - 05:09 pm:

Fury:
Gladys Harris, the widow of Andrew Harris (Sport Records' owner) was our contact. Tuff City Music Group purchased the masters in the fall of 2002.
We also pay artist royalties.

You & Jay may contact me directly for more information - kevingoins@juno.com.

Kevin Goins - KevGo

By Fury13 (209.69.165.10) on Monday, March 03, 2003 - 05:11 pm:

Thanks, Kevin... I'll relay your message to Jay. I appreciate your response.

SR

By stephanie (64.63.221.27) on Monday, March 03, 2003 - 06:36 pm:

Harry dont look sad you are the best and we know you are honest!!! Guys it was fun reading all of this info on the reissue labels and YES Sundazed does some good stuff along with Rhino. I was mad when I found out that Time Warner was a part of Rhino though. I have to tell you I know a producer who is getting royalties from Collectibles and he is quite happy at this point.
I dont like the packaging on Collectibles but they are not meant for the serious collector like Rhino and Sundazed...
Stephanie

By KevGo (64.115.26.80) on Monday, March 03, 2003 - 09:08 pm:

Stephanie:
When Time Warner bought Rhino in 1992 it was seen at first as a savvy move for both parties - it gave Rhino a strong distributor and marketing concern for their reissues and it gave Time Warner an outlet for their catalog. What screwed up the whole thing was the royalty issue Fred mentioned (which is why Brunswick pulled away from Rhino in 1996) and Rhino's regurgitation of the same songs on different collections rather than digging into the vaults to reissue fresh stuff. For example, I waited years for someone to do an expanded anthology of the Association (I have all of their Valiant/Warner Bros. albums). When Rhino finally did an Association anthology (in 2002) I had already purchased import CDs of the original albums! And Time Warner owns the Associations' masters!

I'm much more impressed by smaller labels such as Taragon, Sundazed & Varese - they go for the stuff Rhino won't touch and the remastering is far superior, especially Taragon. If you're a Dusty Springfield fan, check out their CD of her first two Mercury albums. Most of the stereo mixes came from the original session tapes and sound great.

As for the royalty issue, I go back to my Brunswick mention. When Rhino wanted to renew their agreement with Brunswick to reissue their catalog, they offered the label an advance that was barely in the six figures. Imagine trying to divide that up among the Chi-lites, Jackie Wilson's estate, the Artistics, Young-Holt Unlimited, Barbara Acklin, Little Richard, the Lost Generation, Otis Leavill, Willie Henderson...you get the picture. The deal was rejected & Brunswick went full swing into the reissue biz.

Kevin Goins - KevGo

By dvdmike (65.208.234.61) on Tuesday, March 04, 2003 - 07:11 am:

Kev, who is going to issue the Jackie Wilson compilation you are working on? I have to admit that I bought some of the CD compilations that Brunswick released in recent years and I wasn't terribly impressed with the remastering.

By dvdmike (65.208.234.61) on Tuesday, March 04, 2003 - 07:17 am:

Collectables is one of those "box of chocolates" reissue companies. For example, they did a good job on the Ebonys and Blue Magic (up to a point, "Grateful" sounded raggedy") compilations, but the Independents' compilation they did earlier sounded like total crap. If I can find a CD done by another label, I'd say that Collectables is probably the last label I'd buy from unless that was the only label available that was putting out something I wanted. They have improved somewhat, but they still have a ways to go.

By JSmith (212.39.231.20) on Tuesday, March 04, 2003 - 07:35 am:

RE: Goldmine & "Toller Licensing"..........
I am told that under UK law, if you license some tunes from an outfit & it then transpires that the outfit didn't have the rights to the material anyway, the UK reissue company can't be sued.

Thus Goldmine license everything 'in good faith' from the non-existent Toller Licensing and so can't be sued. That is their stance at any rate.

They recently put out a Howard Tate cut only released on Jerry Ragavoy's little label. The song was also written, produced & published in house. When I told Howard / Jerry's lawyer he contacted Goldmine. First they said they had licensed from Jerry. When told NO you didn't, they said Howard was involved. Again they were told NO. They then said they had licensed material from another label of the same name & had put this track out assuming it was the same label. Told NO again, they said they would scrap the CD's and reissue without the offending track.

All they did was remove that track from the CD's track listing on their web site. Fine company I think we would all agree.

By Fred (205.188.209.38) on Tuesday, March 04, 2003 - 10:42 am:

JSmith wrote (regarding a Howard Tate bootleg):
All they did was remove that track from the CD's track listing on their web site. Fine company I think we would all agree.

J, please contact me offlist at Intheway1@aol.com.

Thanks.

By KevGo (64.115.26.80) on Tuesday, March 04, 2003 - 11:26 am:

dvdmike:
If you look closely in the liner notes of the Brunswick-released Jackie Wilson anthologies, you will see the name Dennis Drake as the remasterer.

Dennis was the VP of Engineering for PolyGram (he remastered Wes Montgomery's "Goin' Out Of My Head" CD and Spanky & Our Gang's "Greatest Hits" CD)until 1992 when he started his own company, Music Lab. He remasters the Time Life CDs as well and does a fine job.

He has remastered the following CDS for Brunswick:
Jackie Wilson Live At The Copa (remastered from original three-track tape)
The Greatest Hits of Jackie Wilson
The Best of the Artistics
Brunswick Years Vol. 1
Chi-lites "Inner City Blues" CD
Artistics "I'm Gonna Miss You","What Happened"
Tyrone Davis "Turn Back The Hands Of Time","Can I Change My Mind"
Barbara Acklin "Love Makes A Woman" & the Greatest Hits

Dennis will also be remastering the anthology.

I would strongly suggest that if you have some constructive feedback regarding the quality of the work to please email me. To say that "you weren't impressed" doesn't help me or Dennis do what we can to possibly improve what needs to be done.

Kevin Goins - KevGo

By stephanie (64.63.221.17) on Tuesday, March 04, 2003 - 11:30 am:

Hey Kev Go (off Topic)
I love Enter the Young and Six Man Band by the Association it showed they could rock if they had to...
Stephanie
I Love their Greatest Hits Album..

By KevGo (64.115.26.80) on Tuesday, March 04, 2003 - 06:44 pm:

Stephanie:
I have "Six Man Band" on a old Warner Bros. single. It is surprising that these were the same guys that sang "Cherish" but that's what made the Association so great - their versatility.
The Greatest Hits album is a classic and Warner Bros/Rhino issued two compilations - a double CD ("Just The Right Sound") that has their hits and album tracks and "The Esssential Association" which has the same tracks as the Greatest Hits plus and minus a few exceptions.
My fave will always be "Along Comes Mary"
Kevin Goins - KevGo

By dvdmike (12.84.117.60) on Tuesday, March 04, 2003 - 07:36 pm:

Sorry Kev, it wasn't a personal attack, I didn't even know you had done the past stuff, I thought this was a new project for you. If I was offensive in my comment, I apologize. Sometimes I get a little "passionate."

By KevGo (64.115.26.80) on Wednesday, March 05, 2003 - 11:24 am:

dvdmike:
No sweat, amigo. Like I said, I welcome constructive feedback. If you feel there's room for improvement, by all means let me know so that Dennis, Paul Tarnopol, Rich Kamerman (associate prod.) and myself can do the best job possible.
Thanks again,
Kevin Goins - KevGo

By Livonia Ken (136.2.1.101) on Wednesday, March 05, 2003 - 11:44 am:

Dennis Drake does good work. The other mastering engineer I have seen credited on recent Brunswick release was Ivan Goldberg. He did the JW 20 Greatest Hits and a number of others.

Regards,
Ken

By KevGo (64.115.26.80) on Wednesday, March 05, 2003 - 11:54 am:

Ken:
Ivan is indeed a wonderful remastering engineer Brunswick uses for certain projects.

If it's a project that only needs "clean up" (transferring from two-track analog masters or DAT's that contain already mastered material), Ivan Goldberg or Randy Hudson would do the assignment. However, when it comes to dealing with multi-track tapes and/or restoration, Dennis is brought in (Dennis also remastered the bulk of the catalog with is on DAT tapes - the same tapes Randy and Ivan use).

Kevin Goins - KevGo