Royalties Elusive for Many Jazz Greats

NPR's Felix Contreras continues his series of reports on aging jazz legends with this look at the odd and disturbing area of artists royalties...

All Things Considered, April 20, 2005 ·
Reissues are the bread and butter of the jazz record business, but the artists whose talents made the records possible often miss out on the royalties that could help sustain them in old age.

Singer Jimmy Scott was a star in the years following World War II. In 1950, he had a top 10 R&B hit with "Everybody Is Somebody's Fool." But he only got a flat fee for the song. And even though he was a featured artist, Scott says he never got any royalties for records he made for a variety of small and medium-sized labels in the 1940s and '50s.

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