Classic Pop Icons

Legendary soul singer Aretha Franklin will receive the Music Icon Award at the 10th anniversary TV Land Awards next month.

The star-studded event will be taped at New York City’s Lexington Avenue Armory at Gramercy Park on April 14 and will air on April 29.

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The New Releases page has been updated to include music CD, DVD and Blu-ray releases for March.

Highlights for March include:

• Bruce Springsteen’s “Wrecking Ball” in standard and deluxe editions (Mar 5)
• Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company “Live at the Carousel Ballroom 1968 (Mar 13)
• a great value reissue of the 4-CD Elvis box set “The Complete ’68 Comeback Special” (Mar 13)
• the Madonna “Complete Studio Albums – 1983-2008” box set (Mar 20)
• Lionel Richie’s new duets album “Tuskegee” in standard and deluxe editions (Mar 26).

ABC-Paramount Records almost gave up the store when they signed Ray Charles to a long term deal in late 1959. The contract the singer received was unprecedented in the industry. After recording and promotional expenses had been recouped, the singer would receive a royalty rate of 75 percent. Generally artists received a rate between one (on the really disreputable labels) and five percent. There was also a $50,000 annual guarantee whether Charles’ records were profitable or not. On top of that, after five years of exclusive use by ABC-Paramount, ownership rights of Charles recordings made at the label would revert to the singer. This is a consideration rare even in today’s more artist friendly industry. What made the deal all the more remarkable was the fact that Brother Ray had only placed one record in the Pop Top Twenty to that point, the same year’s breakthrough masterpiece “What’d I Say.” The fledgling corporate owned label, though, was eager to make the signing because they felt Charles’ name would encourage other artists in the lucrative R&B, jazz and rock and roll fields to see ABC-Paramount as a potential home.

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