This is my first “new article” since the “Tahiti” one.  I apologize for that. The 80’s in retrospect, was an incredible time.  Especially for music.  One of my favorite female singers, Scandel’s Patty Smythe (I am The Warrior), not to be confused with Patty Smith (Springsteen’s Because the Night), was at the Canyon in Valencia not too long ago.  But for the fact that her voice was shot from doing a number of shows that week and her physical appearance being unrecognizable, it was still her.  I consider myself to be a huge fan. I identify with the 80’s and now have a Porsche 928GT to prove it.
Anyway, there were not many of us there that night so and by the end of the night, most of us were right around the stage area.  She had just finished doing an acoustic version of Rod Stewart’s Downtown Train, one of my favorites.  The crowd was so-so for that one, perhaps because Brooklyn Girls on the train is an East Coast thing.  And she has one more song to sing.
She said, “I bet you guys knows what the song is” and people started yelling out the names of songs.  Someone yelled “Only the Young.” Patty said, she would not sing that one and told us a story, which is the legal lesson for this month’s article. To paraphrase her, she got completely screwed because she bought that tune from Journey and as she was recording it to put on her album, she found out that Journey was releasing the same song.  And a very large legal battle ensued.
The legal lesson, make sure that your contracts includes everything, especially the things that you might take for granted.  I have not seen the contract, but had it included language releasing all right and title to the work and giving her the exclusive right to record it and perform it, there probably would not have been much of a legal battle.
As for the stink eye, Patty said, she wasn’t sure whether Journey ever had a hit with that song, and I screamed out very loudly to everyone: “Yeah they did.”  Because in fairness, they did.  It was like the title song to the Vision Quest Movie.  If she had said instead, both versions were incredible, I would have yelled out: “yeah they were”.  It was still a great show.
For questions regarding family law and civil appeals and litigation, contact the Law Offices of Richard A. Marcus at 661-257-8877.