Produced By Norman Whitfield
Norman is A Rolling Stone AP: LOS ANGELES - Norman Whitfield, who co-wrote R&B classics such as "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and "Papa Was a Rolling Stone," pleaded guilty to failing to report more than $2 million in royalty income, authorities said. [More] This playlist contains some of the great Motown classics produced and/or written by Mr. Whitfield. Good luck to him. I always root against the IRS. (Via: The Rhapsody Radish)
posted by Robert Burke @ 5:01 AM
1 Comments:
Unfortunately, there's much more to it than this...if it were Whitfield against the IRS, sure, why not take his side, but there's a much sadder story at the bottom of his money problems. Some of those royalties undoubtedly came from the song "Car Wash," performed by Rose Royce, which he is supposed to have written. Did Whitfield in fact write the song?
Well, some of it, yes, most likely. Is he in fact the sole author, or even main contributor? Probably not. There was recently large court case in Los Angeles with regard to Whitfield's relationship to Rose Royce and the royalties for their recordings, and a lot of rather unpleasant facts are coming out about Whitfield--someone normally regarded simply as a treasured composer and historically significant musical figure. It seems that Whitfield signed Rose Royce when they were all just out of high school, exploited them, took credit for a good deal of their songwriting, and in the end left them with--nothing. Rose Royce has apparently, through loopholes in their contract engineered by Whitfield, received no royalties since the late 1970s for any of the work they've done. The band members have, to date, made only a small sum each from the total of their recordings (which include a number of albums). Where has the money gone? Take a guess....I say let the IRS take the money that Whitfield cheated his way into in the first place. Of course, ideally the artists might finally see a piece, but I'm sure the IRS wouldn't find themselves too bothered by that notion...
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