We did some work with Sam several years ago. They owed us a pittance (200 or 300 bucks) and I couldn’t get them to pay us for anything.
After about 6 months I finally sent a letter announcing that failure to pay this bill in a certain number of days gave me the right to do anything I wanted to with whatever of their products I had in hand.
His wife went nuts, talked about copyrights etc etc etc, afraid I would release a tape of whatever I had, but she sent the check immediately.....
She then demanded I return whatever of their products (tapes) I had on hand.
I gladly informed her I had absolutely nothing.
Hard to explain this. Many in the music business don’t take care of business; they get a wife who knows something about business and things get better. But it often goes the other way - like you said, she went nuts. (She was involved with Billy Preston, too) There are wives who are responsible for pulling great musicians up from wherever they were, getting them what they deserve, and then there are wives who are responsible for nurturing paranoia and turning people against their husbands. I’m still undecided against Mrs. Moore (I think her name is Joyce) but I’m not leaning in the good direction.
Sam can still sing his a$$ off. He made a hideous recording about a year ago with lots of guest artists who simply had nothing to do with his kind of music.