My Hit Record
By: William, Dollar Bill
Tags: Music Business, Music, Life Lessons, Memoir, Culture

My Hit Record

It took 25 years to find out I’d actually had one

photo by author

It wasn’t a great song. In fact, it wasn’t even a good song. Or a completed song, for that matter. But years ago when I was young and full of ambition, I brought a tape of several songs I’d written to a studio owner who thought he heard something magical therein and wanted not only to record my compositions — but have me sing them as well! I thought he was crazy. Maybe a couple of the tunes were noteworthy. But my voice? No way. I can’t sing for shit!

Well…it didn’t take long for him to come around on my vocal talents. But we did record three of the compositions, one of which (the not very good or even completed one) was titled “I’ve Got It.” It was really nothing but a lively disco track styled after “The Hustle” (which was a big hit at the time) with not much more than 4 lyric lines. The B part was instrumental — if for no other reason than my co-author and I hadn’t written words over that part.

Regardless…my partner (the studio owner) went for a big production on the number. He hired an industry veteran (Carl Hall, who played the Wizard in “The Wiz” on Broadway) to do background vocals, and found a soulful singer to do the lead.

And then he hired 10 string players, and had me write my first string chart. By the time it was over, we had a half-written song that sounded really professional. (My partner kind of knew what he was doing. He’d had a hit record and act as producer of “We Ain’t Got Nothin’ Yet” by the Blues Magoos.)

Art (the partner) and I had a somewhat acrimonious parting of the ways soon after the recording, and I moved on to other projects (I was fairly active at the time). And then 4 years later, he called to say that he’d sold the record to a fledgling company and had $500 for me as my part of the advance.

I’d totally written Art and that record off at that point. I actually had something else on the Billboard dance charts when he called and could care less about that stupid half-finished song. But the five hundred bucks? I went and got my money — and a box of 25 45 rpm records of our production.

Looking at the label, I knew Rojac wasn’t much of a record company. The artwork was bare-bones, and the company address at the bottom of the record was 125th Street in New York. Still, I called to identify myself. The company (as it were) was a father and his son who sang the record. The office was actually Harlem World disco on 125th Street.

I rode the A train up to the club, ate some neckbones with the fellaz, and actually did a performance of the song on a Saturday night. But I knew that record was going nowhere and as usual, I shoved off for the next project which might hopefully get me the hit record I sought.

Fast forward more than 20 years. I was out of the music business and selling advertising to escorts for a living. And a handsome one at that. I’m not sure that even a big hit record would have earned me as much cash as I was making running my agency.

One day, I received an overseas phone call from a guy in Norway asking if I was the Bill Mersey who wrote and arranged “I’ve Got it.” I thought it was a joke. But it turned out that the song had been the soundtrack of his youth. He was writing a feature for a music magazine and wanted to know if I had any copies of the record.

Generally, I kept at least one or two of every record I’d been involved in for posterity. This was before the age of You Tube where you can find virtually every record ever recorded. Back then, if you didn’t have a copy of your stiff, it would be almost impossible to hear the record.

I offered that I probably had one or two left and added “how much could they really be worth?” (It sounded like he wanted one.) The caller admitted that he would pay more than a few bucks. But I shucked the whole deal. It wasn’t worth the few dollars I’d gain to sell them and then not have any copies for the rest of my life.

Fast forward another few years, and another guy — this man from England — called about the same record. And he offered to buy the publishing rights (which were not actually mine to sell) for $2000! Because he couldn’t find Art, he said it would be ok for me to sell them. Why would I turn down $2000?

So I negotiated for a while and got him up to $2500. But he wanted the two copies of the record I still had from the box of 25 Art had given me 25 years before. No problem! For $2500, I could live. Plus, his company was going to re-master and re-release the record and would send me a couple of copies as replacements.

Sure enough, a week later, the dude came to New York and rang my apartment bell. He was a young guy who looked more like a college student than a record executive. Neither of us had a copy of the contract. But that didn’t seem to bother him. Just so I gave him the two copies of the original “I’ve Got It,” he was fine with the transaction.

And so, he whipped out 25 one-hundred-dollar bills, and I forked over my two copies plus some other stuff I'd been involved in which he was somehow familiar with. I couldn’t understand how he knew about those old stiffs and why he’d want any of them. But who cared? I would find out sooner than later.

This all took place when the internet was in its relative infancy. Google was new, and very few people knew how to navigate it. But I’d just learned. After Fry (his name) left, I began to ponder the situation: “Why would he pay all that money for publishing rights and not even have me sign on the dotted line? All he wanted was the records, it seemed.”

It was then that I Googled “I’ve Got It” + “Tolbert” (the artist) and finally discovered why he’d paid all that money with no signed contract. An original copy of “I’ve Got It” had sold on eBay to a Japanese businessman for $4116! I was in shock. How could that be?

It didn’t take long for me to understand. I had run my own record company at the end of my music career. And I knew that there were a few distributors who would pay cash (rather than consignment) for a couple of hundred records that sounded good to his ears. The distributor knew he could sell them all and would purchase the records at a discount in that knowledge.

And I knew from experience, that’s what happened to “I’ve Got It.” Rojac had circulated a few to Europe where miraculously, the record had found an audience. But by the time it became popular, there were precious few around for purchase. The law of supply and demand had set in and boosted the price to north of $4000!

Eventually, I came to discover a musical movement in England called “Northern Soul,” whose mission was to find American soul records that sounded like hits but had never seen the light of day — and then popularize them at their huge club events. “I’ve Got It” had become one of the genre’s flagship songs. And to have an original copy of the record? Well…it was worth $4116 to somebody.

I spoke with Fry after that and ripped him a new asshole for paying only $1250 for each copy. Karma did catch up with him in the end. Art discovered the re-release and they had to pay for the rights all over again!

I don’t know how many copies the re-release sold. And I don’t really care. What struck me as most absurd was how much that stupid 45 was commanding on eBay. Imagine that you have a bunch of old 45s gathering dust in storage. And that one of them is worth $4000. And then imagine, it’s a record of a song that you wrote, arranged, and co-produced. It was just too insane.

You might ask at this point “so what happened to the other 23 records Art gave you along with the $500?”

When a producer had a new release, we would give them out as calling cards to other people in the industry. Who I’d actually given them to I could barely recall 25 years later. And even if I had, I wouldn’t know how to find them. And even if I could find them, what’s the chance they kept the record?

I did call my mother and brother, to whom I often gave copies of my new releases. But alas, neither had a copy.

Anyway…to struggle in the music business for 15 years and never have a hit record. And then to find out 20 years after you gave up that I actually had had one? Really fucking strange!

Wanna hear it? Here we go!