John Kennedy, a manager to Richard Ashcroft’s alternative rock band, The Verve, discussed with Billboard how he and Ashcroft’s other manager, Steve Kutner, fought to turn around the long running dispute of ownership over The Verve’s 1997 hit, ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’.
In 1997, the Rolling Stones won the publishing rights to ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’, as the late Allen Klein, who was in charge of the Stones’ work between 1963 to 1971, sued them over the use of the Andrew Loog Oldham orchestral recording. The sample had come from 1965’s ‘The Last Time’, included on the album, ‘The Rolling Stones’ Songbook’.
It is believed that the band were permitted to use the four second sample from the Andrew Loog Oldham recording. The sample was obtained through Decca Records, however the publishing rights of the composition by The Stones’, had not been secured.
In the present day, Richard Ashcroft has only received $1,000, helmed from the settlement deal, out of an estimated, and staggering, $5 million, in publishing revenues. John Kennedy called it “one of the toughest deals in music history”.
It was last chance saloon for Steve Kutner as he approached the late Allen Klein’s son, Jody Klein at ABKCO, his father’s company, who died in 2009. The two parties at last met, and the meeting led Kennedy to meet with Joyce Smith, the manager of the Rolling Stones, detailing Ashcroft’s thoughts.
Smyth would soon after speak to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. They agreed with Ashcroft and signed their shares of songwriter’s royalties to its composer. Further they said they would relinquish writing credits on the track.
At the Ivor Novello Awards on May 23, Ashcroft heralded the development in the story a “remarkable and life-affirming turn of events”, and that it was, “made possible by a kind and magnanimous gesture from Mick and Keith.”
ABKCO does still remain the one and only publisher of ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’. Kennedy and Kutner remain confident this can be changed too, as it seems the tide is beginning to turn in their favour.
“The most important thing is that Richard’s song is back with him,” Kennedy declared, adding. “He’ll get some money from it now, but of greater importance is that he gets the full recognition that this masterpiece was truly his song.”
The Verve are responsible for other hits including ‘Lucky Man’, and the UK number one ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’.
