Aston “Family Man” Barrett, the longtime bassist with Bob Marley & the Wailers, received the green light from London’s High Court to mount a claim over the band’s royalties, potentially worth millions of pounds.
Barrett is suing Universal-Island Records Ltd and Island Def Jam Music Group, claiming that both he and the estate of his late brother, drummer Carlton Barrett, have not been paid years’ worth of royalties due to them under two recording agreements made in the 1970s.
In the ongoing claim, Barrett says he and his brother, together with other members of the Wailers at various times, entered into partnerships with Marley on the basis that profits would be shared equally between Marley, on the one hand, and the remaining partners on the other.
Therefore, he claims that Marley entered into recording agreements in 1974 and 1975 as their agent and they were party to those agreements, but Island and its parent Universal Music Group have failed to account to them for any share of the royalties they are due on the albums made under those agreements: “Natty Dread,” “Live!,” “Rastaman Vibration,” “Exodus,” “Kaya,” “Babylon by Bus,” “Survival,” “Uprising,” and “Confrontation.”
Source Billboard.com.
