How Ray Parker Jr. Got Cheated Out of a Grammy for a No. 1 Hit

Variety ^ | 8/11 | Jeremy Helligar

[Captainpaintball]

No it’s not. An identical song is Led Zeppelin stealing Dazed and Confused from Jake Holmes, who opened for them on a few occasions

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTsvs-pAGDc

[nickcarraway]

Did they steal songs from all their opening bands?

[nickcarraway]

More Than I Can Say was written in 1959 by Buddy Holly's band, shortly after he died.

[nickcarraway]

That is my favorite by him.

[nesnah]

He stole the song! It’s identical to Want a New Drug by Huey Lewis!

---

He sure did.

Another thief - “All I Wanna Do” from Cheryl Crow

Ripping off Gerry Rafferty’s riff in Stealers Wheel “Stuck in the Middle With You”.

[nickcarraway]

Why is he whiter than other people?

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

But the rate at which black people were cheated by the music industry is pretty epic.

Nearly all the singers regardless of sex or skin shade got cheated by the music industry. Generally when they were young and starting out.

The ones that didn't either had family in the music industry or family who were lawyers. Or had family who were mafia. :)

[nickcarraway]

Richard Harris and Donna Summers both did MacArthur Park

The song was written by Jimmy Webb, who is white. I never liked the song, until I read about what inspired it. Webb was dating a girl (Linda Ronstadt's sister Susan) and would meet her every day for lunch at the park.

Webb wrote another song, By the Time I Get to Phoenix, which Isaac Hayes did a cover of, even mentioning Webb by name in the song. Hayes, though a successful songwriter himself, often did covers of songs, many written by white songwriters.

I'm not sure it matters so much, but Steve Cropper was a guitarist who cowrote many soul classics, especially on the Stax/Volt labels.

Stax/Volt was founded by a white brother and sister, but it released music mostly by black artists, but gave them more of a free reign. It was eventually bought by Al Bell, who was black.

The musicians didn't segregate themselves, even if radio stations and record stores did.

[nickcarraway]

Even today’s Taylor Swift was apparently taken advantage of by her label. She apparently doesn’t own the rights to her masters, which more artists today do.

[nickcarraway]

Meh. Rafferty and Egan never sued her. Tom Petty never went after people who had more similar to his songs than that. But I heard Petty say he based American Girl on Bo Diddley.

Prince too a songwriting credit on Stevie Nick's Stand Back. (But Sting never demanded a credit for that song, but he did get a co-credit for Money for Nothing by Die Straits)

Prince had his record company call Journey, because he thought Purple RainFaithfully. Cain and Schon, the songwriters declined to ask for a credit. Apparently Prince was a big fan of Neal Schon.

Journey said they thought One Direction ripped off a song of theirs, but they didn't seek remedy.

Different artists have different attitudes.

[nickcarraway]

I was driving around and flipping around on Sirius/XM. The 60's station was playing Speedy Gonzales, but I don't know if it was Pat Boone's version.

I think Pat Boone hosts a show on Sirius/XM, but I'm not sure when it is. Peter Noonan also has a show.

[Captainpaintball]

They stole from blues artists in their first couple of albums, and there were lawsuits which involved re-doing songwriting credits, and I guess, royalties. Dylan was a stealer, too.

[Fledermaus]

Sounds different to me.

[nickcarraway]

“good artists borrow, great artists steal.” - Picasso. But T.S. Eliot said more or less the same.

But we are talking about two different things.

One is a songwriter writes their own, different song, and they use too much from an existing song.

The other is the person doesn't write a new song, they just take credit for a song that someone else wrote.

[nickcarraway]

Lionel Richie wrote the lines, "You're every breath that I take/You're every step I make, " in Endless Love, which was an even bigger hit that Every Breath You Take, less than two years earlier.

[nickcarraway]

Led Zeppelin opened for Spirit, and stole several of their songs, including the note for note introduction of Stairway to Heaven

[Dr. Sivana]

The musicians didn't segregate themselves, even if radio stations and record stores did.

The musicians NEVER did. Some other good eggs, too. Ollie McLaughlin was a black Michigan DJ who got Del Shannon noticed by the record labels.

Frankly, it was all working out nicely, until Buddy Holly died, and the British invasion hit. Black people weren't so much in the Beatlefication of everything, and went into soul, funk etc. while the white kids went for psychedelia, hard rock, metal, and later punk and new wave. Disco was an attempt to bring it back together again, at least in the mainstream, but that ultimately failed. Blacks went into rap and hiphop, and the divergence was pretty much complete. Too bad.

[Dr. Sivana]

Peter Noonan also has a show.

That's Peter Noone, or as he jokes, "Peter No One". I've heard both Peter and Pat on XM. Both great gentlemen. Peter is also on the Mark Steyn show as a guest.

If you ever want to hear someone completely NOT get the song he is singing into the Brit Top 20, check out his solo version of David Bowie's "Oh! You Pretty Things!" on YouTube. David's on the piano, and has to help Peter commit this atrocity.

[Dr. Sivana]

which was an even bigger hit that Every Breath You Take, less than two years earlier.

Arguably not. "Endless Love" was #2 for the year, "Every Breath" was #1. I know, I listened to it 50 times on an 18 hour drive from Chicago to Connecticut in 1983, because WBBM-AM Chicago's signal goes everywhere, and they had what seemed like a three song playlist.

[greenishness]

I think we all remember this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvBmtqyaijI