It Turns Out the “Ghostbusters” Guy Has a Lot More Songs
I worked for Ray back in the day put a few sound systems in his budding car collection Spent many an afternoon chating with him amazing talent thanks for posting very humble guy
He stole the song! It’s identical to Want a New Drug by Huey Lewis!
Dude could write songs.
As for Leo Sayer, is it me or is he like a twin brother of Richard Simmons?
Everything is now brought under the umbrella of racism, even if it isn’t. People cheat other people. They lie and steal. It doesn’t become racism when a black is the victim.
Some of the Grammy awards have been controversial. For example, the Kingston Trio’s “Tom Dooley” won the award for best country-western song and a few years later, Petula Clark’s “Downtown” was dubbed the best rock and roll recording. While “Tom Dooley” may qualify as country-western, “Downtown,” a down-tempo bolero, is most certainly not rock and roll.
Label suits (and unions) have screwed more musicians and ruined more music than you will ever know. One of the reasons I hate the music business, even though we have been in it for 50 years.
Ray Parker sounds like a very talented songwriter who never hired a competent manager or agent. I recall most of his big songs.
Singer Janis Ian had a somewhat similar fate.
She was only 14 when she wrote and performed her biggest hit
Society’s Child. Her record label, Atlantic refused to release it for years, since it had to do with interracial romance. A good Agent or Manager may have prevented that refusal from happening.
Does Parker think racism may have been a factor — a white industry insider deciding to pull one over on a young Black kid from the streets of Detroit?
Biggest laugh line I’ve come across this year, well, this decade, well, this CENTURY.
>>Does Parker think racism may have been a factor — a white industry insider deciding to pull one over on a young Black kid from the streets of Detroit? “I imagine it could be racial as to they decided, ‘Ah, forget him. We’re just gonna do it. We’re not going to pay him royalties. He’s young, he’s new, and I’m the bigger guy in the business and who’s gonna listen to him versus me, so I’ll just do what I want to do.’ So I was just kind of kicked to the curb.”
Ask the Beatles and the Stones and others about stolen royalties/ownership.
It isn’t always about race.
The industry rewards the suits. Always has and it still is in the era of billions of dollars of revenue from streaming and a few million to the artists and songwriters.
Speaking of Leo Sayer, I always thought that the Police’s “Every Breath You Take” sounded like Sayer’s “I Love You More Than I Can Say”
It Turns Out the “Ghostbusters” Guy Has a Lot More Songs
This happened all the time and all along the way. I played for an artist in the late ‘70’s early 80’s. He got cheated out of a No. 1 hit ranking and learned about it because a connection had access to the actual sales figures, as opposed to the report the public saw. He was signed with WB at the time and went to the president with the evidence.
The president just said, “Relax. You’ll get your No. 1’s when it’s your turn.” He did get 8 eventually.
I know a songwriter who wrote with a new pop star on her first album about 20 years ago. He co-wrote 5 tunes, album was huge hit. She paid him for each of the 5 but shorted him on them all because there was no written contract. Sounds like Parker made the same mistake. He’s still writing and a multimillionaire but he lost about half of that deal.
You can’t Change That was a nice track. Ray is now into the Smooth Jazz scene and seems to be doing quite well.
FREEPERS sound like libs
Blame the white guy
Better yet blame Led Zepplin