Iron Maiden stop playing "Hallowed Be Thy Name" live due to legal dispute

[ronmac]

The Entire Population Of Hackney was a side project that Adrian Smith and Nicko McBrain put together after the World Slavery tour ended. The group was the two of them, plus Andy Barnett, Dave Colwell, and Martin Connolly. The group only played two gigs, one of which had Dave Murray, Bruce Dickinson and 'Arry sitting in on the encores.

I have a recording of that gig somewhere on a cassette.

[GuitarGeek]

[QUOTE=Jubal;700175]

So what would Gary Brooker sue over? Did he not get songwriting credit?
BTW, he heavily leaned on Bach's "Air On a G String" with the main melody of that song

Not Gary Brooker, but the other keyboardist, the guy who played organ. Matthew Fisher, I think was his name. He sued Brooker about 10 years ago (and won), because apparently it was Fisher who came up with the organ part, which was deemed a signature part of the song.

So says Wikipedia:

In 2009, the House of Lords found Fisher to be joint-author and co-owner of Procol Harum's song 'A Whiter Shade of Pale' by virtue of his contribution to the song in the form of his organ solo, despite waiting nearly 40 years since its release to make a claim. Fisher won the case on 20 December 2006 but was awarded 40% of the composers' share of the music copyright, rather than the 50% he was seeking and was not granted royalties prior to 2005.

And no, the melody does not "lean heavily" on Air On A G String. The chords are the same, but except for the first couple notes, the melody is different. At best, it might be described as being "inspired" by Bach.

Agreed that Caire Torrey got ripped off until the settlement.

But my point is, why do people wait decades to file such lawsuits?! I remember reading about how there was an attempt to sue ZZ Top, because of the similarity of La Grange to the classic John Lee Hooker song Boogie Chillun, which I think occurred sometime int he 90's. One story I heard was the lawsuit was thrown out because the statute of limitations had run out, another story I heard once was that the boogie rhythm (which I suppose is the main point of contention) is in the public domain and therefore the lawsuit was invalid to begin with.

I mean, I could see waiting a few years, because you don't want to spend a whole lot of money on a lawsuit for a song that's not gonna end up being an evergreen. But, let's say in the case of Great Gig In The Sky, surely even in the early 80's, Claire Torrey must have known she had already missed out on a lot of money.

(shrug)