More than a dozen artists are suing the pioneering Chicago house label Trax Records, the estate of co-founder Larry Sherman, and current owner Screamin’ Rachael Cain among others, Rolling Stone reports.
The plaintiffs, among them Vince Lawrence, who was instrumental to the label’s early days, and musicians Marshall Jefferson, Adonis and Maurice Joshua – allege that the label owes them unpaid royalties and in some cases that the label never paid them anything at all, according to a copy of the lawsuit seen by the Guardian.
In a statement to the Guardian, Cain claimed she had not seen the lawsuit filed against her. She said: “Since the legally documented replevin of the entire catalogue by Casablanca Trax of Canada and their exclusive licensing of the music, I have worked to regain the catalogue specifically to breathe life back into the label and get the artists paid the royalties they are due.”
Jefferson claims that Trax released his 1986 single Move Your Body, a cornerstone of house music, without his consent and never paid him for his work.
“We didn’t have record companies in Chicago,” Jefferson told Rolling Stone. “It was totally uncharted territory. We didn’t know how to do record deals or anything like that, so we were basically lambs to the slaughter. [Sherman] wouldn’t tell us anything. We got no statements. We just wanted to get our music out.”
Cain has previously disputed this on behalf of Trax, telling Mixmag: “There is a separate signed contract for Move Your Body.”
DJ Pierre said that Sherman kept the international popularity of Trax releases hidden from the artists who produced them. “I had no idea that our music was migrating to London,” he said, something he discovered thanks to a British journalist. “I was like, ‘Wait a minute. This guy here has been ripping us off.’”
In the lawsuit the plaintiffs claim that they are entitled to the “maximum statutory damages available for wilful infringement … in the amount of $150,000 with respect to each timely registered work that was infringed”.
Lawyer Sean Mulroney said that there was a clear pattern of financial wrongdoing by the label. “Sherman said he was going to pay them and never did,” says Mulroney. “Are you going to spend 50, 60 grand to chase it down, knowing there’s no moving forward? What are they worth? You have to go, ‘Is it worth it? I’ll just keep writing.’ And for some of these guys, it was, ‘I’ll never write another song again.’”
Cain said: “We are putting royalty systems in place now that we can pay royalties and are working on making payments right now ... And this will be our first opportunity since regaining the catalogue and getting payment.”
Cain added that she felt as though she was being “used as a scapegoat” for the label’s alleged historic issues: “I love this music and I love the artists. And whatever it is that Larry did that was wrong, I feel pain and empathy for those who have suffered.”
The suit follows Larry Heard and Robert Owens winning a legal battle against Trax in August in which they regained the rights over their music, albeit without any financial settlement due to what their lawyer Robert S Meloni characterised as Trax’s impecunity, as reported by the Guardian.
Sherman, who died in 2020, started Trax in 1984. In 1997, he told the Chicago Tribune: “The kids making these records didn’t know what they should get, and they often didn’t know what their material was worth. And being a good businessman, you don’t say, ‘I think you’re underestimating the worth of your material. Here’s a few thousand dollars more.’”
Sherman was forced to sell Trax to his wife, Cain, as part of a divorce settlement in 2006. In 2020, she said of Sherman’s 1997 remarks: “Many of the songs were sold for thousands of dollars as the contracts reflect. Larry liked to fabricate and make everything appear larger than life. He enjoyed playing the mogul/villain. But many of the artists had a soft spot for Larry. And Larry definitely had a soft spot. He helped out a lot of the artists and was one of the few sources for production, vinyl pressing, distribution, and, most of all, cash.”
