‘He’s So Fine’: GH v The Chiffons
They then sued me over a song written by a guy who died a while back that I had never even heard of anyway, although I’d heard the song.
Written by Ronald Mack and recorded by The Chiffons, ‘He’s So Fine’ was released as a single in December 1962 and became a US number one hit the following year.
Mack had brought the song to the Bright Tunes Music Corporation. Bright Tunes was a production house run by New York group The Tokens, whose members agreed to produce and perform the music for ‘He’s So Fine’ at the Capitol Recording Studios.
The Tokens – Phil Margo, Mitch Margo, Jay Siegal and Hank Medress – were house producers for Capitol Records, but the label’s president Voyle Gilmore rejected the song as “too trite… too simple”. They took it to 10 different labels before Laurie Records took an interest.
‘He’s So Fine’ was issued in December 1962. In addition to topping the US charts, it also reached number 16 in the United Kingdom.
‘My Sweet Lord’ was originally recorded by Billy Preston in January 1970, and released by Apple Records in 1971. Preston’s recording had gospel backing vocals and a more R&B feel than Harrison’s subsequent recording. Indeed, had Harrison retained Preston’s arrangement he may have escaped the expensive and lengthy litigation that followed.
Harrison’s recording was released as a US single on 23 November 1970, four days before the All Things Must Pass album. On 10 February 1971, while it was still on the singles chart, Bright Tunes filed a lawsuit against Harrison, Harrisongs Music Ltd and Harrisongs Music Inc (his UK and US publishing companies), Apple Records, BMI and Hansen Publications.
Allen Klein, the notoriously hard-nosed manager who at the time was running Apple Records, met Bright Tunes’ president Seymour Barash to attempt to resolve the litigation without a lengthy and expensive court case. Klein suggested to Barash that Harrison would be willing to purchase the entire Bright Tunes’ catalogue by way of settlement.
Barash countered with a proposal that the copyright for ‘My Sweet Lord’ be surrendered to Bright Tunes, with Harrison receiving half of the revenue. The negotiations between the two parties came to nothing and preparations for the court case gathered pace.
Musicologist Harold Barlow was enlisted to provide his expert opinion on the similarities between ‘He’s So Fine’ and ‘My Sweet Lord’. Klein also appointed attorneys to represent Harrison.
The case was delayed when Bright Tunes went into receivership. In the interim Klein’s management contract with Harrison was terminated, a development which would crucially change the outcome of the dispute.
Once Bright Tunes’ business affairs were put in order, negotiations continued between the company and Harrison. In January 1976, just a few weeks before court proceedings were to resume, Harison offered $148,000, representing 40% of the composer and publisher royalties accrued thus far in the US, with Harrison to retain copyright for ‘My Sweet Lord’.
Bright Tunes’ attorney considered Harrison’s offer “a good one”, but subsequently raised its demand from 50% of the US royalties to 75% of worldwide revenue and full copyright ownership.
Harrison was unaware that Allen Klein had been in discussion with Bright Tunes to be bought out by his own company ABKCO. Klein offered $100,000 for the right to buy Bright Tunes, with an additional $160,000 to be paid following the judge’s ruling. This would have allowed Klein to walk away from the deal had Harrison won.
During his negotiations, Klein gave Bright Tunes information on the US royalties accrued by ‘My Sweet Lord’, in addition to his estimate on overseas earnings and future valuation of the copyright. Klein’s unprofessional actions would aid Harrison in the post-trial damages assessment.
Seymour Barash, who had since left Bright Tunes but was still a major shareholder, wrote to Howard Sheldon, who was overseeing the receivership of the company. Barash suggested that Klein’s eagerness to purchase the company indicated that he thought there was a good chance that the court would find in Bright Tunes’ favour.
Barash told Sheldon that Klein’s offer should be used as a starting point in negotiations with Harrison, and demanded that the songwriter provide updated sales figures before settlement negotiations would continue.
The court case
I didn’t really think people were small-minded enough… but whereas in popular music they love to sue each other about things. Now, when I did that song, they [Bright Tunes] were in liquidation, and the liquidators decided they could make some money by suing me. We went to court and the judge said, “I don’t believe you stole it, so make a settlement.” So we were making a settlement… and the rights were bought to ‘He’s So Fine’… to keep on in a lawsuit! And it went on and on, and eventually the judge went, “This is silly,” in the end. That’s what happened.The only shame about it was if the writer of ‘He’s So Fine’ had been alive in the first place there probably would have never been a lawsuit. Gods knows I never sued anybody about all the songs of mine that got stolen.
Billboard
Harrison and Bright Tunes returned to court before negotiations could go any further. The case was in two parts: liability of copyright infringement, and the awarding of damages.
Both sides called expert witnesses, and Harrison testified in court about the writing process. However, the judge eventually decreed that ‘My Sweet Lord’ did indeed contain plagiarism of ‘He’s So Fine’.
The court noted that ‘He’s So Fine’ contained two key musical phrases, known as motif A and motif B. Motif A was four repetitions of the notes G-E-D, while motif B was G-A-C-A-C. Harrison’s expert witness caimed that the combinations of notes were common enough to be considered in the public domain, but admitted that grace notes inserted into motif B in both songs did not appear elsewhere.
The judge ruled that while there were some differences between the two songs, the essential musical nature of the songs were substantially similar. He said it was “perfectly obvious” that the songs were “virtually identical”. Although he ruled that neither Harrison nor Preston deliberately intended to plagiarise ‘He’s So Fine’, that was not a valid defence.
Harrison admitted that he was familiar with ‘He’s So Fine’, which had become a fixture on golden oldie radio stations. It would have been far more likely that producer Phil Spector knew the song well, since he was chasing his own share of number one pop hits in 1962.
In September 1976 Judge Richard Owen ruled that Harrison was guilty of subconscious plagiarism, and ordered a further trial to set damages. The plagiarism verdict was upheld on appeal; Harrison argued that subconscious copying was an unsound policy, but the appellate court ruled that the Copyright Act did not require evidence of an intent to infringe, leaving Harrison liable for damages.
I have read differently about the “George O’Hara-Smith Singers” in other sources. This was just a pseudonym for George Harrison singing along, via overdub. Most of the vocals and backup vocals for the ATMP sessions took place in late August and September 1970 (At this time, Eric Clapton and Bobby Whitlock were in America on tour with Derek & The Dominoes). George was having a bit of studio fun by himself doing a lot of overdubbing.
“Cyril and Betty” were mentioned in the liner notes of the ATMP remaster (released in 2001) and was probably just a joke. I don’t think Cyril and Betty actually existed.
January of 1970 the 4 BEATLES HAD SEVERAL CHESTNUTS IN THE BAGtowards a new album. What might have been
Maybe I’m amazed
My sweet lord
Instant karma
Back sear of my car
Junk
It don’t come easy
Isolation
Working class hero
Hear me lord
That would be something
Love
I found out
All things must pass
Mother
Cold turkey and Art of dying as a single
Alan White (not Andy, although that would have been cool) played drums on MSL
@archie – as a matter of fact, it is Andy, not Alan, White who claimed to have drummed on this track in an interview in Uncut magazine. But most other sources I’ve found say it’s Ringo and Jim Gordon.
Bobby Whitlock plays harmonium
The fact that Alan Klein became involved for money as well as revenge surprised no-one and as Harrison later said ” it just proved that Paul ( McCartney ) was right about him all along “
I’m convinced there are some errors in the list of contributions on the track. For a start, George played acoustic guitar also (he added the slide guitars much later). As he says: “I spent a lot of time with the OTHER rhythm guitar players to get them all to play exactly the same rhythm so it just sounded perfectly in synch.”
Also, I’m surprised to see Alan White’s recollection being taken as gospel. He’s given the very same story about If Not for You (and I think it is that track he’s thinking of, which fits with Simon Leng and Bruce Spizer’s song credits), and he’s also sworn blind that Lennon played rhythm guitar on one of the ATMP songs (which would’ve been impossible, because John was in LA with Arthur Janov when the basic tracks were recorded!). Anyway, White keeps changing his mind about which songs he played on; from what I read, most Beatles biographers ignore what he says. Besides, George named the drummers as Ringo and Jim Gordon – how can White’s version overrule that?
Peter Frampton added more acoustic guitar, with George again, towards the end of production. Someone also added those lovely zithers – George once again, I guess (they sound like the autoharp(s) he plays on Ravi’s I Am Missing You).
I agree with Barry Smith about the backing vocalists. “Cyril” and “Betty” were just examples of George joking in his 2001 credits, along with the credit for Phil Collins on Art of Dying; ditto for George saying something about how working with Spector helped him “realise the full potential of the Hare Krishna Mantra”. (I didn’t get that last joke until I read a couple of authors pointing it out.)
Whitlock may have been one of the singers, although I always get an uncomfortable feeling he’s a little too ready to credit himself for all and everything. But I don’t where the idea came from that he *and* Clapton sang on this song – Whitlock doesn’t say that, and Bruce Spizer only mentions them as singing on “some of the songs”, but not necessarily My Sweet Lord. (Whitlock and Clapton sing on All Things Must Pass, Let It Down and Awaiting on You All.)
I agree with you and I myself noticed the omission of George’s acoustic guitar credit.
I found a second-hand copy of the 45 “My Sweet Lord” from the late Bev Benson amongst a pile of records that she gave me when I was 11 1/2 years old. I remember when I first played the 45 on my record-player, I found that I rather liked the song.