[78-L] TOPS artists (was Bud Roman..Who he?.. )

[Randy Watts]

Sinatra sued Capitol back in the 1980s over those Pickwick albums. His contract prevented Capitol from releasing his material on other labels. (Capitol got around that by pressing those albums with a Capitol label rather than the usual Pickwick label. "Pickwick Series" is printed underneath the Capitol logo.) As I recall, the suit was thrown out because he had waited too long to file it. Capitol was still doing that, though, as late as the 1980s. I have a Sinatra LP on a label called Pair that pulled the same trick: pressing the records with a Capitol label that had "Pair Series" printed underneath the logo rather than pressing them with Pair's own label.

Randy

--- On Tue, 3/23/10, Jeff Sultanof <jeffsultanof at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Jeff Sultanof <jeffsultanof at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [78-L] TOPS artists (was Bud Roman..Who he?.. )
> To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
> Date: Tuesday, March 23, 2010, 9:27 PM
> I once interviewed Cy Leslie, who
> started Pickwick, Design and a whole batch
> of other budget labels. A fascinating man who impressed me
> as being a very
> up-and-up businessman. Whatever records he put out he had
> deals on
> (including Frank Sinatra) or he'd purchased the labels
> outright (Tops). He
> made a deal with Capitol to get the rights to issue
> recordings that were not
> in print. This is how he wound up issuing a number of sides
> Capitol never
> issued, and he put out Sinatra albums using tracks that
> Capitol deleted from
> their catalog. He also engineered the deal where CBS Video
> obtained home
> video rights to the MGM catalog, and he described to me the
> separate deal he
> made with CBS TV to get the rights to put "The Wizard of
> Oz" out on VHS and
> Beta, since the TV network had exclusive broadcast rights
> at the time.
> 
> He was very proud of the Pickwick operation.
> 
> Jeff Sultanof
> 
> On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 8:37 PM, Steven C. Barr <stevenc at interlinks.net>wrote:
> 
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Dan Van Landingham" <danvanlandingham at yahoo.com>
> > > The Jonny and Jack you mentioned:were they Johnny
> Wright(married to Kitty
> > > Wells)and Jack Anglin?Anglin was killed in a 1963
> car wreck that Patsy
> > > Cline attended at the time of her death.I had a
> TOPS
> > > 45 of "Why,Baby,Why" and it was as good as the
> version I heard by George
> > > Jones.I don't see much
> > > country on TOPS but I do see alot of '40s-'60s
> country on albums leased
> > by
> > > Pickwick on labels like
> > > Design,Stereo Spectrum and several others.I
> believe Bill McCall,at Four
> > > Star Records,leased those
> > > masters to Pickwick.The artists were the likes of
> Jimmy Dean,Patsy
> > > Cline,Maddox Brothers and Rose,
> > > Charlie Ryan(of "Hot Rod Lincoln" fame),Wynn
> Stewart and Slim Willett of
> > > "Don't Let the Stars Get in
> > > Your Eyes" fame from '53.Bob Sandy is the only
> TOPS country artist that
> > > comes to my mind at the pr-
> > > esent.
> > >
> > Pickwick (et al) seems to have reissued (legally or
> otherwise...?!) whole
> > bunches of recordings
> > originally from fifties-era "indie labels" and other
> "unlikely to sue"
> > sources! I recall (but no longer
> > own) an LP which near as I could figure came from
> mid-thirties
> > transcriptions...I aurally verified
> > that the tracks were NOT taken from the ARC recordings
> of the tunes...!
> >
> > And it does seem possible that they could have used
> the various tracks that
> > appeared
> > "semi-anonymously" on the various multi-track 78's of
> the fifties...?!
> >
> > Steven C. Barr