Golden World

[mysterysinger]

Does Motown own all the Golden World masters? I know UK TM released The Reflections "[[Just Like) Romeo and Juliet" many years ago. Just wondered whether they own "Poor Man's Son" too?

[mysterysinger]

My introduction to the song came via The Rockin' Berries who did a great version...

[bradsupremes]

Does Motown own all the Golden World masters? I know UK TM released The Reflections "[[Just Like) Romeo and Juliet" many years ago. Just wondered whether they own "Poor Man's Son" too?

I thought they did. I know when Motown did album releases on Edwin Starr and the Fantastic Four they used tracks before Motown bought them out.

[theboyfromxtown]

It would be interesting to view the contract to see what exactly was bought. As a layman, I would assume, at a minimum, that the purchaser would take over all assets and rights that the seller was able to offer. So I would expect what Motown wanted from their recording vault would have been passed over, with rights, together with the artist contracts. If a record company releases those recordings now, it would check that they had full rights.

When Jerry Plunk had one of his interviews with Midnight Johnny, he related that Ed Wingate gave Jerry a formal release from his Ric Tic contract just prior to the company being bought by Motown. So it is clear that Motown didn't take over all of the artist contracts when they bought Ric Tic.

[thomas96]

Yes they do.

[theboyfromxtown]

I thought they did. I know when Motown did album releases on Edwin Starr and the Fantastic Four they used tracks before Motown bought them out.

Brad.

I wouldn't know how to start but if you can access the SDF archive, you should find some interesting posts on the Motown purchases - there was more than one. It's been discussed previously and I seem to recall that a few Detroiters affected by the purchase, contributed to those threads.