Originally Posted By: eddie1261
Notes, you still have a chance to be in Rare Earth!! They have 1 date booked this year in September. And I'm sure you know the songs. LOL!!

Nah, I'm happier where I am now.

Rare Earth was called The Sunliners or something like that, and they were Berry Gordy's second choice to be the first all-white band to record on a Motown label.

It wasn't a racist thing, strictly business. Bob Seger had a #1 hit on Detroit Radio, something Motown had 'owned' for a long time and it was a matter of giving the audience what they seemed to be asking for.

We were The Nomads and were Berry's first choice. (At the time I thought is name was Barry and people were just using a Midwest pronunciation.)

The contract they offered us was 2 cents per recorded song on vinyl. Out of those royalties they would deduct inflated recording costs, inflated distribution costs and inflated promotion costs. Plus they wanted to own the publishing rights to anything we wrote, and a Motown 'ghostwriter' who did nothing at all would be listed as a writer and get half the songwriter royalties. In addition, they wanted to own the name, so they could hire and fire and run up to 4 bands with the same name on tour. Motown didn't own the name The Sunliners, but they did own the name Rare Earth.

Our manager figured we'd have to sell over a million LPs our first time out to end up not owing Motown any money. It was a bad offer. When our manager held out for a better deal, they quit talking to us and went to the Sunliners. I don't know what they settled for.

But it was nice playing as the opening act for the Motown Review, before that we had opened for The Association, The Four Seasons and other groups that had current Top10 Billboard Hits plus we opened for other acts that were not in the top 10 but still big like The Kingsmen, The Shirelles, The McCoys, and others.

There were a lot of mind-altering substances, a lot of beautiful women, and a lot of money going around for a few years.

When Motown dropped us, the band members started fighting, and we broke up. I guess it was the realization that if we didn't have an 'in' in the business already, we were bound to be just another exploited group of musicians. We didn't know or were not related to the right people in the recording biz.

I have no regrets, it was fun playing for huge crowds, being treated as peers by the top names in the business, and enjoying the fringe benefits.

BTW, Eddie. I have a customer who uses my styles (and PG styles) with Band-in-a-Box to send songwriting demos to Nashville. He chose Country Music because the Nashville stars generally don't write their own songs. He had had a number of them get published and a few bought by major acts. He sent me a few demos, I could hear my styles plus some additional instruments (mostly flat-top guitar) and some nice singers. It may be too late for you to be a teenage idol, but not to be a songwriter.

Notes

Then when Motown fell through,

Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
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