almost rare songs

[mariana44]

I cannot see any point in withholding these recordings--if the demand is there.

[Rmoore]

I take it that we might be bound for Texas this time.

Perhaps - If we can get it cleared!

[Rmoore]

So what you're saying Richard is that most of this new release we've already had but the quality will be improved and expanded?

Sort of. Anything that was on Matt Uncovered: The Rarer Monro will be exactly the same. Anything from Rare will be completely re-mastered (I didn't master it in the first place and needed it to have 'My sound' so they all fit together). Some of the recordings will be a little longer

Isn't it weird that you can't now release material from a certain period?

Not really. This is what's happened.

EMI Worldwide was bought by Universal Music Group in it's entirety, however they then had to sell certain parts of their catalogue under competition laws. This included the Sanctuary/Pye catalogue which was sold to BMG Music Publishing (This stayed an independent company when BMG/RCA records was bought by Sony a while back) and most of EMI UK and a number of other territories. This has become the Parlophone Label Group and is now owned by Warner Music. Capitol stays part of UMG.

In short:
EMI UK Recordings (For Matt this is 1960 - 1965 and 1971 - 1985) belong to PLG/Warner Music Group
Capitol Recordings (1966 - 1970) Belong to UMG

PLG no longer have access to Matt's Capitol Era recordings without expensive licensing fees

Oddly the entire EMI & UA recordings of Shirley Bassey are owned by PLG - this is confusing because from 1966 she recorded for United Artists which was later bought by Capitol - Nobody can explain this to me as to why Bassey is fine but Matt is not!

Universal is the same as they now say the do not have the rights to Dusty's Mercury recordings who released her albums It Begins Again & Living Without Your Love and yet they were released on cd some years ago.

I am hoping someone will own up to actually owning the rights one day otherwise they may never be released again, the record business is really strange nowadays - I often wonder if they know what they are doing?

It depends what the original deal was Karl. These may well have been independent productions leased to Mercury (still owned by UMG by the way). When the CD's were brought out the deal way well have still been in place. This may well have lapsed now - Of course it's also possible that UMG don't know what they are talking about!

I've been in a similar situation with another artist. We have been trying to get access to some master tapes that reside in both Warner and Sony archives (one tape each!). Neither company hold the rights to the recordings now and the company that leased them to the labels has long since been defunct. You could probably state quite a good legal case that in the absence of an owner that the copyright should go to the artist, but they just don't have the money. It's a daft situation because nobody will ever be able to touch those tapes again and they will just sit gathering dust on a shelf.

[paul jh]

I'm assuming Love Song won't be on the new Rare collection since it's on Capitol. I was hoping that you would remaster the long version on The Rare Monro. The single version on The Complete Singles Collection sounds so clear, but I like the long version.

[Rmoore]

Sorry Paul, no it's Capitol so currently off limits. The single version was actually re-edited by me from the long version strait from the master tape so if we ever get the chance to put the long version it out again it will be just as clear.