Wednesday, April 23, 2008

(part 58) BEHIND THE SCENES MEDDLING

As of a year ago, these pages were found for sale on eBay. They indicate things going on behind the scenes that I knew nothing about. Mira Productions (Randy Wood, Betty Chiapetta, and Abe Somer) maneuvering the situation to their own advantage. This attempt obviously put Verve Records off.

The negative outcome was seen by me at the time in Verve's reluctance to continue promoting "Color Him In" shortly after it's release. According to these documents, made known to me by Steve Stanley, there was fear on Verve's part of having to fight over Bobby Jameson as an artist with Mira Records, Randy Wood, and Betty Chiapetta's publishing and production companies.

The fact that Mira, Wood, and Chiapetta didn't own my publishing, or have me signed as an artist, was irrelevant to the damage done by this kind of meddling by Abe Somer, Randy Wood, Chiapetta, Mira Records/Publishing/Productions.



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What is amazing about this paper (above), is that Randy Wood is telling Abe Somer an absolute lie and it is captured for all time in this document. Wood states, according to the document's signature, that Mira Productions/Publishing have me as an artist and a writer under both Bobby Jameson and as a fictitious name... Chris Lucey? Chris Ducey? Either way it is a lie.

He then goes on to say that he, Randy Wood, wants Abe Somer to get a contract, regarding me, approved by the court which is pretty interesting since I never signed one. That is a piece of paper that I would love to see.



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This document (above) is again from Mira. Look at Dear Marcel. Just under it you can clearly see Mira Productions Inc., bleeding through from the page behind. So what I have here is a written statement by Randy Wood, telling Marcel Stellman from Decca Records UK, the label I was on in England with "All I Want Is My Baby," that MGM/Verve has a deal with Steve Clark, with me as an artist and writer. He says that he, Wood and Surrey Records, own the publishing to 14 of my songs, 10 of which were released as "Songs Of Protest And Anti Protest" by Chris Ducey, not Lucey, but Chris Ducey.

This is just a flat out lie! Anyway, it would seem obvious to me that MGM/Verve was put off by this kind of back and forth between others who had worked with me in the past.

Not until recently, did I learn of how Randy Wood, Betty Chiapetta, and Abe Somer harmed the Verve deal and "Color Him In." It was Phil Turetsky who had his office at Mira, and who was friends with Wood, Chiapetta, and Abe Somer. It was Phil Turetsky who took me from Mira to Steve Clark and Our Productions. I have no way of knowing whether Phil had any knowledge of this or not. It is sad to learn, some 40 years later, that nothing was as it appeared to be in 1966 and 1967.