Rights to Rock Treasure Chest at Issue in Trial

For 35 years, from Biloxi to Harlem, Marshall Sehorn has made his living in the watch-your-back world of the music business. Along the way he’s shared the euphoria of driving a hit to the top of the charts--and the sting of deals gone wrong.

There was the night at the Seltzer Club in Charlotte when he found a performer named Wilbert Harrison singing “Kansas City”--a tune that soared to No. 1 in 1959 after Sehorn signed him to a recording contract. Two years later Sehorn signed Gladys Knight and the Pips to their first contract after watching them perform at northeast Atlanta’s Royal Peacock.

Conversely, one night in Miami Beach he was beaten unconscious--the result of a fight with rival record promoters who wanted to pay bribes to a national roster of rhythm and blues disc jockeys.

Indeed, the New Orleans-based Sehorn is the first to agree that he is neither an ingenue nor music’s most beloved man. “If I wanted to win a popularity contest,” he drawled, “I couldn’t.”

But is Sehorn a cheat--a man who should be stripped of one of his most prized assets?

The answer will begin to unfurl on Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court, where MCA Records Inc. is suing Sehorn over the rights to about 3,000 early rock ‘n’ roll and blues songs by artists such as Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley. The songs belong to the Chess Masters Catalogue, a name derived from Leonard and Phillip Chess, brothers whose company recorded many of the songs, and are ranked among the industry’s most valuable assets.

MCA Records says it acquired exclusive rights to the entire Chess Catalogue, which totals 25,000 songs, for $3 million in 1985. But Sehorn says that in 1976 he obtained non-exclusive, worldwide rights to a portion of the same catalogue.

Sehorn says he is entitled to resell portions of the Chess catalogue whenever, wherever, to whomever he wants. And he has: A co-defendant in the lawsuit is an Albuquerque, N.M., company owned by John D. La Monte, a convicted record counterfeiter. La Monte’s company purchased some of the disputed titles.

MCA alleges that Sehorn’s 1976 contract is a “sham,” that he is engaging in fraud and that the original recording artists have been paid none of the royalties owed them from Sehorn’s sales. MCA is seeking unspecified damages, plus court orders nullifying the contracts of Sehorn and his licensees and prohibiting them from making more sales.

“Our objective is to get what we bargained for in 1985, and that’s the exclusive rights to the (Chess) catalogue,” said Lawrence Kenswil, a senior vice president and lawyer for MCA’s music-entertainment group. MCA Records is part of the Universal City-based entertainment conglomerate that was acquired by Japan’s Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. in 1991 for $6.59 billion.

If MCA Records wins the lawsuit, Sehorn could be forced to pay it damages--plus potentially expensive claims for remuneration from his customers.

“Clearly, it’s a very big case for Marshall,” said Sehorn’s attorney, Richard Fannan of Los Angeles, a self-described “inveterate” fan of country and R&B; music, who in a sworn declaration said that he owns more than 6,000 albums and 300 compact discs.

And the trial figures to spotlight more than just whether Sehorn and La Monte have the lawful right to possess and resell portions of the Chess Catalogue:

Based on court documents filed in the case and comments from the lawyers, the trial will resurface the nature of MCA Records’ dealings with a reputed organized crime figure, dealings that came to light four years ago during a federal tax-evasion prosecution.

“It’s going to be a sub-current (of the trial), and there’s going to be reference to it,” Fannan said.

Among the witnesses Fannan said he intends to call at trial is Salvatore Pisello, who federal prosecutors in the 1980s alleged was a soldier for the New York-based Gambino crime family. Pisello, who has denied any mob affiliation, is of interest to Fannan because he served as an intermediary in MCA’s acquisition of the Chess Catalogue.

Fannan said he will challenge the legitimacy of MCA’s ownership title--including whether the company had reason to suspect that there were complications with the Chess Catalogue at the time that MCA, using Pisello as the intermediary, bought it.

Pisello in 1988 was convicted in Los Angeles and sentenced to four years in prison for failing to pay taxes on more than $300,000 he earned from a series of business deals with MCA Records and a New Jersey company, Sugar Hill Records. It was from Sugar Hill that MCA Records, with Pisello’s assistance, purchased its rights to the Chess Catalogue. Pisello, now free on parole, could not be reached for comment.

For their part, MCA executives and lawyers have said that Pisello was not an employee, that the company did not know in advance of his alleged affiliation with organized crime and that MCA severed its relations with Pisello upon learning of the 1985 tax conviction.

“He (Pisello) really has very little, if anything, to say that’s relevant to” MCA’s lawsuit against Sehorn and La Monte’s company, said Russell J. Frackman, an attorney for MCA. “It’s a red herring.”

Frackman also noted that a Superior Court referee ruled late last year that MCA was not required to divulge documents related to Pisello’s role in obtaining the Chess Catalogue or his other dealings with MCA. Sehorn’s lawyer had made the request while alleging that MCA and Pisello’s acquisition was a product of “racketeering.”

Besides the allegations related to organized crime, there also is the issue of royalties: MCA lawyers point out that neither Sehorn nor his licensees have paid the fees, typically 10% to 35% of an album’s cost, to the recording artists.

“None of my artists have derived a nickel from Sehorn or from any of his licensees,” said Scott A. Cameron, a talent manager who said he represents the estate of the legendary Muddy Waters, plus 19 other performers whose recordings are part of the Chess Catalogue. “They’re selling recorded performances of my clients, and my clients aren’t benefiting from those sales.”

Sehorn denied that he has cheated anyone, saying that the 1976 deal required the man who sold him the Chess Catalogue rights to pay whatever royalties would be owed.

“I haven’t received any money to pay artists’ royalties,” Sehorn said, adding that when the litigation is resolved, he expects that the original artists will be paid what they are owed.

What MCA and Sehorn do agree on is that a central figure in the dispute is the man who sold him the Chess Catalogue--a New Jersey-based distributor and rap music promoter named Joseph Robinson Sr. It is Robinson who conveyed or sold the rights both to Sehorn in 1976--and to MCA in 1985.

MCA contends that Robinson did not have the authority to convey any of the Chess rights to Sehorn.

And MCA is trying to prevent Robinson from testifying at the trial, citing his refusal to provide relevant documents or to answer questions at a deposition.

Fannan, however, said Robinson’s testimony is vital to Sehorn’s defense. In a written brief, he called Robinson “the most important witness in this case. . . . Without Robinson as a witness, Sehorn’s chances of prevailing drop dramatically.”

Robinson does not speak kindly of MCA.

“They’re the biggest thieves in the world,” Robinson testified during a raucous, 20-minute deposition two months ago. “They stole $4 million from me. That’s what started this whole thing. . . . They in turn bribed my wife, caused me to have a divorce. I lost a $5-million home. I lost my (music) catalogue, I walked away from them. . . . They haven’t heard from me anymore--I don’t want to hear from them.”

Aside from his unsolicited statement, Robinson declined to answer questions from MCA attorneys. He did not return phone calls from The Times.

By Sehorn’s account, he and Robinson have been friends since the late 1950s, soon after he was hired by Harlem-based Fire & Fury Records.

Sehorn said Robinson called him in 1976: Robinson had obtained the 25,000-song Chess Catalogue and wanted to do some business. The result, Sehorn said, was the deal whereby he acquired the non-exclusive rights to about 3,000 of the Chess songs. In exchange, Sehorn said, he granted Robinson rights to hundreds of other master recordings.

Because of a settlement MCA reached with Robinson in 1988, after he had sued the company, MCA and Robinson are prohibited from suing each other. Consequently, MCA must sue Sehorn and the others if it hopes to enforce exclusive rights to the Chess collection.

“We’ve made it clear that anyone licensing and manufacturing Chess (Catalogue) product is going to hear from us,” Kenswil said.

The case against Sehorn and Creative Sounds, the company owned by La Monte, will test MCA’s claim of exclusive ownership.

For his part, La Monte said he obtained rights to the Chess Catalogue from a Tyler, Tex., company that had bought rights from Sehorn. Said La Monte’s lawyer, Michael Hurey of Encino: “My guy’s no angel, but he tries to be an honest businessman.”

When La Monte testified at a deposition last January, he did so as John Lancaster--his pseudonym in the federal witness protection program.

La Monte entered the witness program after a falling out with two men, record industry mogul Morris Levy and an aide, who had demanded payment for a large shipment of what are called cut-outs, or albums that are discontinued. The sale actually was for MCA-produced cut-outs, and the transaction was arranged by Pisello--the same man who assisted in MCA’s acquisition of the Chess Catalogue.

After La Monte had refused to pay in full for the cut-outs, saying he did not receive what he ordered, Levy’s aide attacked him at the swimming pool of a New Jersey motel. La Monte suffered a fractured left eye socket, and his facial bones had to be reconstructed with wire. La Monte’s statements in 1988 helped to convict Levy of extortion charges. Levy died in 1990.

In an interview, La Monte, 48, said that MCA’s lawsuit has undermined his credibility with potential customers of “budget” cassette tapes and compact discs.

“This will certainly vindicate everything, if we win. It will finally get the monkey off my back,” said La Monte, whose face still shows the disfigurement inflicted seven years ago.

La Monte and Sehorn allege that MCA is suing, in part, to squeeze smaller competitors like themselves out of the marketplace.

Countered Kenswil of MCA:

“If you own two cars and someone steals one of them, you’re not trying to squish out competition on the road. You’re just trying to get your car back.”