<
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190622/00214242448/universal-music-cashed-insurance-after-it-let-thousands-master-recordings-burn-didnt-give-any-to-artists.shtml>
This is truly horriffic:
"Among the incinerated Decca masters were recordings by titanic figures
in American music: Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Al Jolson, Bing
Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland. The tape masters for Billie
Holiday’s Decca catalog were most likely lost in total. The Decca
masters also included recordings by such greats as Louis Jordan and His
Tympany Five and Patsy Cline.
The fire most likely claimed most of Chuck Berry’s Chess masters and
multitrack masters, a body of work that constitutes Berry’s greatest
recordings. The destroyed Chess masters encompassed nearly everything
else recorded for the label and its subsidiaries, including most of the
Chess output of Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Willie Dixon, Bo Diddley,
Etta James, John Lee Hooker, Buddy Guy and Little Walter. Also very
likely lost were master tapes of the first commercially released
material by Aretha Franklin, recorded when she was a young teenager
performing in the church services of her father, the Rev. C.L. Franklin,
who made dozens of albums for Chess and its sublabels.
Virtually all of Buddy Holly’s masters were lost in the fire. Most of
John Coltrane’s Impulse masters were lost, as were masters for treasured
Impulse releases by Ellington, Count Basie, Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy
Gillespie, Max Roach, Art Blakey, Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, Ornette
Coleman, Alice Coltrane, Sun Ra, Albert Ayler, Pharoah Sanders and other
jazz greats. Also apparently destroyed were the masters for dozens of
canonical hit singles, including Bill Haley and His Comets’ “Rock Around
the Clock,” Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats’ “Rocket 88,” Bo
Diddley’s “Bo Diddley/I’m A Man,” Etta James’s “At Last,” the Kingsmen’s
“Louie Louie” and the Impressions’ “People Get Ready.”"
Punchline:
"So, once again, whenever the RIAA, its employees and friends put
themselves out there as supporting “artists” maybe bring up this one
example, of where it destroyed important works of art and deliberately
lied about it publicly for years, while secretly collecting millions of
dollars and not giving the artists their share."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://www.xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
http://www.glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
http://www.sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
