POP/ROCK - Oct. 16, 2001

His Take Today on ‘Yesterday’s’ Troubles

Paul McCartney has told Yoko Ono that “there’s still time” to mend a rift between the two over the Beatles song “Yesterday.”

McCartney revealed earlier this year that he and John Lennon’s widow had argued over the writing credit to the song during the making of the Beatles “Anthology” album.

Though “Yesterday,” like most of the Beatles songs, was officially credited to McCartney and Lennon, McCartney maintains none of the other Beatles had anything to do with the song. He then asked Ono to put his name first on the credit, but she refused, the singer said in May.

“It actually is one of the reasons that we’re not the greatest of friends,” McCartney told Reader’s Digest recently. “But if you’re reading this, Yoko, there’s still time.”

McCartney, who was on a plane awaiting takeoff from a New York airport on the morning of the Sept. 11 attack, will take part this Saturday in “The Concert for New York City” at Madison Square Garden. (The all-star concert, airing on VH1, has added Bono and Edge of U2, David Bowie, Elton John, Destiny’s Child and Janet Jackson to the lineup.) McCartney is also releasing a global charity single this month to aid New York firefighters and police officers.

Crosby vs. Universal in Royalties Fight

The estate of Bing Crosby has filed a suit against Universal Music Group, alleging that the family has been cheated out of $16 million in royalties.

A hearing in the case, filed in the Santa Monica branch of Los Angeles Superior Court, is scheduled for next month.

According to court papers, Crosby recorded for Decca Records--which was bought by MCA and folded into Universal Music--under two major contracts. On songs he recorded before 1949, he was supposed to receive a royalty rate of 15% of the wholesale price. After that date, he was to receive 7% of the retail price.

After an audit, his estate and that of his first wife, Wilma Wyatt (an actress known as Dixie Lee), determined that Universal was paying 7% royalties on all songs.

Though Universal claims that the royalty rate had been contractually changed in 1948, the plaintiffs deny there was any such agreement.

Singer Peggy Lee, another Decca artist, also has a royalty case pending against Universal on behalf of all artists who recorded for the label.

A spokesman for the label said the company does not comment on pending litigation.

THE ARTS

Recording the Tragedy for Posterity

How to document the events of Sept. 11 for future generations? A number of groups has already begun to grapple with that challenge.

A new Web site, set up last week and spearheaded by the Library of Congress, already has more than 500,000 Internet pages. An initial list of sites to be archived has grown from 150 on Sept. 12 to 1,100.

When complete, the material might reside on the Library’s “American Memory” collection of historic resources online (https://www.loc.gov) next to Civil War memorabilia.

Meanwhile, a coalition of 33 organizations, led by the Museum of the City of New York and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, just announced that it will begin using an online forum to organize material, ranging from mayoral papers to flyers of the missing.

“Historians are very good at looking back, but looking forward is a little bit tough,” Robert R. Macdonald, director of the Museum of the City of New York, told the New York Times. “We’re trying to decide what we owe history ... and come to some decision-making in terms of what should be collected.”

The two projects may eventually set up a joint site displaying digital versions of their artifacts in time for the first anniversary of the attack.

And a group of National Public Radio producers are also heading up an effort to chronicle the event--collecting audio materials that will be shaped into radio broadcasts, incorporated into on-site memorials or donated to a public archive.

PEOPLE

Everyday Heroes Honored by Marvel

Kevin Smith (“Chasing Amy”) and Stan Lee (“The Incredible Hulk,” “Spider Man”) are among the artists donating their talents to a 64-page, magazine sized, full-color poster book.

The project, honoring the heroes of the World Trade Center tragedy, will be published by Marvel Comics on Wednesday. “While there will be some superhero drawings, for the most part, the illustrations will portray Americans doing what they do,” said Joe Quesada, Marvel’s editor in chief. “It’ll be firemen, EMS workers and citizens on the street.”

All of the wholesale proceeds ($3 of the $3.50 purchase price) will go to the Widow’s and Children’s Fund of the New York Fire Department and the American Red Cross. Diamond Comics Distributors is disseminating the items free of cost, and retailers have been asked to waive the 50 cents they make on each copy.

QUICK TAKES

Rosie O’Donnell is taking this week off after the discovery of anthrax in Rockefeller Center, where her show is taped. Repeats are airing this week until she returns Monday.... Music producer Quincy Jones, photographer Richard Avedon and Tony-award winning lyricist Stephen Sondheim were among this year’s additions into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, inducted during a ceremony at the Harvard Law School on Saturday.... To celebrate the reopening of the David L. Wolper Center for the Study of the Documentary, the USC School of Cinema-Television will present more than 100 photographs of Marilyn Monroe--many of them never publicly displayed. The exhibit is linked to Wolper’s 1964 “The Legend of Marilyn Monroe”, a portion of which will be screened Wednesday night. The exhibit will be open to the public Thursday.