A few weeks ago, I was going through some entertainment news and found out that Jody Watley now owns the trademark for Shalamar. Some of you reading this may be too young to know about Jody Watley and (or) Shalamar, but those of you who grooved the 70s and 80s know what I am talking about. Shalamar gave us such hits as “The Second Time Around” and “A Night to Remember”, then, as happens with many groups, the end came. Jody Watley went on to have a solo career, there might have been a reunion of the band after that, but eventually, the group split with Jody Watley on one side and the two other group members (Jeffrey Daniel and Howard Hewett) on the other side. There was bad blood and everyone in entertainment talked about it. Daniel and Hewett recruited another female and carried on performing with the group name, Shalamar.
Replacing a member of a group is not usually a big deal; if you recall, Destiny’s Child started with Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland and two other girls who left the group and were replaced. However, in the case of Shalamar, Jody Watley alleges some funny business. In an interview with Gerald Radford for Lee Bailey’s Electronic Urban Report*, Watley says, “Beginning in 2005 or so, former member began doing shows in the UK using old photos that included my likeness to market and promote their shows. Fans would post to my Myspace page at the time and then Facebook asking where I was and they assumed I would be there because I was in the ads. The guys apparently would say onstage ‘they were sorry I couldn’t make it, I was welcome back anytime’ – which needless to say was not true and potentially damaging to me as a working artist,” she revealed.
“This came after an appearance on a show there called ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’ where they used a tactic called ‘passing off’ or ‘bait and switch’ – by bringing on an imposter… a woman pretending she was me down to crinoline skirts and jumbo hoop earrings. They would say here we are back together again just like old times, the two Soul Train icons (when in fact Jeffrey and I were the only Soul Train dancers) … while never introducing this woman by her name. Then it went from that to replacing my name under photos that included me from the past in Shalamar as an original and known member – replacing my name with hers … as if they were purposefully attempting to morph this person into Jody Watley.”
The above statement by Watley illustrates the reason why people spend money, time and effort to build and protect their brands, and why the law gives them the right to do so. Well, Watley didn’t just sit back, she hired professionals who did their research and found that the group name, Shalamar, was not legally owned by anyone at that time. So, for what she describes as business reasons (and, I imagine, steps to protect her image and reputation given the antics of her former group members) she registered the Shalamar trademark and now has exclusive rights to profit from it. I am not sure how she managed that since the other two and their reformed Shalamar have been performing under the name for some years now, but she did.
When it comes to group names, in music as in any other business partnership, there are three main issues that the parties involved must be aware of and prepare for in the event that things fall apart. I have said about business partnerships (and music groups are no different) that just as wealthy couples have prenuptial agreements before they marry, business partners must spell out what happens to the whole entity and to their interests in the entire property when one person wants to check out of the union. That is the first issue that group members must think of, and it is advisable to have written agreements between them as to who owns what, how property is shared and what happens in the event of a break- up.
The second issue is the relationship between the group and the record company. If the group is formed before they get a record deal, and ownership of the name lies in the members of the group, they will likely have to transfer exclusive rights to their record label subject to the terms of their contract. I saw a few episodes of the reality TV show, SWV Re-united documenting the attempts of the 90s singers Coko, Lelee and Taj to make a comeback on the music scene. In one of the episodes I saw they talked about the stall in their music career being due to a number of issues including poor management, one of the group members (the lead singer) walking away from the group, and poor support from the record label. After their long hiatus, the ladies were eager to do something big and fresh to bring them back into the limelight, but they were still bound by their contract to the last record label that they were signed onto. They had to do one more album for that label. Before the group re-united, while they were still under contract with the record label, could the label have recruited someone else to replace the lead, reconstituting the lead? Could the other two have gone on to record an album without the lead? The answer, as with many legal questions, is, it depends. It depends on what the agreement between the parties was. It depends on whether the lead was so strongly associated with the group that without her SWV was not SWV. It depends on how marketable the album would be without that particular group member. There are many considerations.
The third issue is between the group and third parties. The difficulty now for event organisers and promoters who want to book Shalamar is, which of the Shalamar groups to book. They are both claiming to be Shalamar, one with legal rights, the other with time in the circuit. I don’t think this is the end of the Shalamar story. We may yet see a long legal battle akin to the one concerning the use of the En Vogue name by former members of that group.
*http://ift.tt/1b4DTSu
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