Fact #171754
When:
Short story:
Motown Records files a £4m suit against songwriters Holland, Dozier and Holland for breach of contract, on the basis that the trio has not delivered any new songs since 1967.Full article:
After Lennon and McCartney, Eddie Holland, Lamont Dozier and Brian Holland were the sixties most successful hit songwriters.
For The Supremes alone, they wrote seven million sellers in a row, and even the briefest listing of their other smashes would include Reach Out for The Four Tops, This Old Heart Of Mine for The Isley Brothers and Marvin Gaye's How Sweet It Is.
The trio had started working for Motown soon after Berry Gordy started the label in 1961, and wrote their first hit Come And Get These Memories for Martha And The Vandellas in May of 1963.
By 1966, though, with a lengthy string of chart smashes to their credit, Lamont Dozier began to feel something was amiss in his team's arrangement with Motown. The trio had, for example, never been given the opportunity of signing a written contract with the label, and they had no access to accounts which would allow them to check whether they were being paid proper royalties. Between 1965 and 1967, they had earned $2,235,155, but felt they deserved considerably more. When they complained, Berry Gordy made verbal promises that more money would be forthcoming, but nothing seemed to change.
In 1967, when Gordy moved Motown's offices out of Detroit and over to Los Angeles, Holland, Dozier and Holland took advantage of his distance to simply stop working for the company. For several months, Gordy noticed nothing, except that none of the trio ever seemed to be in their offices when he rang them.
Eventually, though, Gordy realised that his main hit-writing team had abandoned him. He panicked, instructing Motown's lawyers to sue them for $4m, claiming they hadn't produced any hits lately. The trio immediately counter-sued the label for $22m, representing the unpaid songwriting royalties they reckoned they were owed.
H-D-H claimed in their lawsuit that Motown's legal action was "contrived as a means to justify the total cessation of royalty payments … for the purpose of applying economic pressure." They went on to accuse Motown of "conspiracy, fraud, deceit, over-reaching and breach of fiduciary relationships."
While the legal battle ploughed its way through the courts, Holland, Dozier and Holland left Motown to form their own labels Invictus and Hot Wax, where they went on composing such hits as Band Of Gold for Freda Payne and Give Me Just A Little More Time for Chairmen Of The Board, which occupied the No1 and No2 slot simultaneously in the UK during August 1970. Ironically, because H-D-H were still legally contracted to Motown, those hits could not be credited to the team.
Back at Motown, Berry Gordy tried to fill the H-D-H gap with various combinations of young producer-writers, but in truth they were not replaceable. The lawsuits were eventually settled out of court, for undisclosed sums, but the first great blow had been struck at the heart of the company.
Although the trio ran out of steam and broke up during the seventies, cover versions of H-D-H classics have been providing international stars with hits ever since, including Phil Collins' version of You Can't Hurry Love (1983), You Keep Me Hanging On by Kim Wilde (1987) and This Old Heart Of Mine by Rod Stewart (1990).
(Source : feature by Johnny Black)
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For The Supremes alone, they wrote seven million sellers in a row, and even the briefest listing of their other smashes would include Reach Out for The Four Tops, This Old Heart Of Mine for The Isley Brothers and Marvin Gaye's How Sweet It Is.
The trio had started working for Motown soon after Berry Gordy started the label in 1961, and wrote their first hit Come And Get These Memories for Martha And The Vandellas in May of 1963.
By 1966, though, with a lengthy string of chart smashes to their credit, Lamont Dozier began to feel something was amiss in his team's arrangement with Motown. The trio had, for example, never been given the opportunity of signing a written contract with the label, and they had no access to accounts which would allow them to check whether they were being paid proper royalties. Between 1965 and 1967, they had earned $2,235,155, but felt they deserved considerably more. When they complained, Berry Gordy made verbal promises that more money would be forthcoming, but nothing seemed to change.
In 1967, when Gordy moved Motown's offices out of Detroit and over to Los Angeles, Holland, Dozier and Holland took advantage of his distance to simply stop working for the company. For several months, Gordy noticed nothing, except that none of the trio ever seemed to be in their offices when he rang them.
Eventually, though, Gordy realised that his main hit-writing team had abandoned him. He panicked, instructing Motown's lawyers to sue them for $4m, claiming they hadn't produced any hits lately. The trio immediately counter-sued the label for $22m, representing the unpaid songwriting royalties they reckoned they were owed.
H-D-H claimed in their lawsuit that Motown's legal action was "contrived as a means to justify the total cessation of royalty payments … for the purpose of applying economic pressure." They went on to accuse Motown of "conspiracy, fraud, deceit, over-reaching and breach of fiduciary relationships."
While the legal battle ploughed its way through the courts, Holland, Dozier and Holland left Motown to form their own labels Invictus and Hot Wax, where they went on composing such hits as Band Of Gold for Freda Payne and Give Me Just A Little More Time for Chairmen Of The Board, which occupied the No1 and No2 slot simultaneously in the UK during August 1970. Ironically, because H-D-H were still legally contracted to Motown, those hits could not be credited to the team.
Back at Motown, Berry Gordy tried to fill the H-D-H gap with various combinations of young producer-writers, but in truth they were not replaceable. The lawsuits were eventually settled out of court, for undisclosed sums, but the first great blow had been struck at the heart of the company.
Although the trio ran out of steam and broke up during the seventies, cover versions of H-D-H classics have been providing international stars with hits ever since, including Phil Collins' version of You Can't Hurry Love (1983), You Keep Me Hanging On by Kim Wilde (1987) and This Old Heart Of Mine by Rod Stewart (1990).
(Source : feature by Johnny Black)