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Phil Chess 1921 - 2016


soulpope

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2 hours ago, soulpope said:

No mention by The Guardian of the Aristocrat label (which they originally co-owned and later owned totally) preceding Chess.

NY Times obit: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/20/arts/music/phil-chess-dead.html

Edited by paul secor
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1 hour ago, paul secor said:

No mention by The Guardian of the Aristocrat label (which they originally co-owned and later owned totally) preceding Chess.

NY Times obit: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/20/arts/music/phil-chess-dead.html

Thnx Paul - was in hurry and the Guardian obit was the first one on offer ....

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I really liked this quote:

"When The Chicago Sun-Times asked Phil Chess in 1997 why he had been so successful, he shrugged. “I didn’t know what I was doing,” he said."

As Mr Punch says, 'That's the way ter do it!'

No mention, interestingly, of Arc music, the publishing company founded by the brothers and Tommy Goodman (Benny's brother) (and which also published a hell of a lot of Vee-Jay songs by the likes of Jimmy Reed. If memory serves, they DIDN'T sell those copyrights. Smart guys.

MG

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Yeah, me too.

But they weren't any worse than most owners of indie labels.

The guy who owned Supreme Records, in LA, for whom Percy Mayfield recorded 'Two years of torture', was shot by one of his artists for failing to pay. (Even Blue Note wasn't paying royalties, in the fifties/early sixties as they'd got their artists to sign up to a cash upfront only deal by paying extra.)

MG

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On 10/21/2016 at 10:00 AM, The Magnificent Goldberg said:

Yeah, me too.

But they weren't any worse than most owners of indie labels.

The guy who owned Supreme Records, in LA, for whom Percy Mayfield recorded 'Two years of torture', was shot by one of his artists for failing to pay. (Even Blue Note wasn't paying royalties, in the fifties/early sixties as they'd got their artists to sign up to a cash upfront only deal by paying extra.)

MG

I always thought it was ironic that The Erteguns got involved  with some organization trying to get back owed royalties for blues and R&B artists since many of them had recorded for Atlantic. 

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On 10/22/2016 at 4:02 PM, medjuck said:

I always thought it was ironic that The Erteguns got involved  with some organization trying to get back owed royalties for blues and R&B artists since many of them had recorded for Atlantic. 

Maybe they just wanted the issue resolved, with minimum involvement from them.

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