Why did Berry and Gwen Gordy and Billy Davis take credit for Writing "You Got What It

[robb_k]

The song that they "supposedly" wrote for Marv Johnson in late 1959 or early 1960, and was published by their own Fidelity Music, was almost a carbon copy of "You Got What It Takes" by Bobby Parker, which was released as Vee Jay Records 279 and published by their Conrad Music, more than 2 years before, in 1957. It had the same exact words, almost the same melody[[except a little bluesier and had a featured guitar solo in the break).

Did that trio BUY the rights to that song from Parker and Conrad? I find it hard to believe that the [[at that time) thriving business of VJ Records, in their heyday, would sell a song that had done well, to an up-and-coming smaller music company. But, I also find it very implausible that Berry, Gwen and Billy, "smart cookies" as they were, would boldly STEAL a song from a firm with money that could hire decent lawyers, and from a company in a nearby city, who was well-known in the business, and steal a song that charted on various R&B radio stations and sold fairly well around the country.

Does anyone know the story of this situation?

Here is a link to Parker's version:

http://www.freedrive.com/file/539219...got-what-it-ta

[bankhousedave]

Definitely the same song, Robb. Is it not possible that Berry wrote the thing for Parker and didn't get a credit? It certainly sounds like a BG song, even in the original version, and Berry was busy songwriting then.

[robb_k]

Definitely the same song, Robb. Is it not possible that Berry wrote the thing for Parker and didn't get a credit? It certainly sounds like a BG song, even in the original version, and Berry was busy songwriting then.

I don't think so. I think Bobby Parker wrote it himself and brought it to Vee Jay. Here is his version of the story:

http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=12525

Bobby Parker told the Forgotten Hits newsletter in 2008: "I wrote 'You've Got What It Takes,' that was MY song. Even had The Paul Hucklebuck Band playing on it behind me. I performed with them for seven or eight years - you remember that song 'Do The Hucklebuck.' And then Berry Gordy just stole it out from under me, just put his name on it. And what could I do? I was just trying to make a living, playing guitar and singing, how was I going to go on and fight Berry Gordy, big as he was, and Motown Records? There wasn't really nothing I could do about it - it was just too big and I didn't have any way to fight them. I once documented something like 600 times they've taken my guitar riff from 'Watch Your Step' and used it some place else, but I wrote that riff. I played that for the very first time. You wouldn't BELIEVE how many times it's been used again and again in other pieces of music." Parker added about his version of the song: "It was all over the place playing on the old Wurlitzer Jukeboxes... that one and 'Blues Get Off My Shoulder' - everywhere we traveled we heard it. You got to remember things were different back then... you had your black audience and you had your white audience. We used to play in these old Tobacco Warehouses, they were HUGE buildings and we would fill these places up, and all the black people would sit on one side of the audience and all the white people would sit on the other side of the audience, 'cause that's just the way it was then back in the '50s and into the '60s."

[bankhousedave]

Curiouser and curiouser. I see what you're saying Robb.