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Adalah Bennett
Shaw |
The legendary Hi
Records label has an interesting and productive history
that can actually be divided into three chapters: Hit
Instrumentals (1957-1969), Soul Sounds
(1970-1979), and the Current Classic Releases. For
the history of Hi Records through 1977 go HERE.
For discographies of HI Records artists go HERE.
For the story of how Hi Records' classic master
recordings were saved and the person responsible for
re-activating Hi Records read below:
Adalah
Bennett Shaw is the owner of Hi Records
and ABS Entertainment, Inc., its parent company.
Shaw gained her knowledge of the record industry and
business savvy from her father, the late Al Bennett
(a.k.a. Alvin and the Chipmunks). Shaw began working
for her father when she was just 15 years old and
living in Los Angeles.
At that time Bennett owned Liberty Records,
one of the most powerful labels in the
country. Bennett eventually sold Liberty and
founded Cream Records where Shaw became
an intricate part of his team.
In 1977, Cream
Records purchased Hi and Stax
Records, two Memphis-based
rhythm-and-blues power houses. In 1979,
Bennett sold the Hi and Stax publishing
companies and the Stax master recordings, but
he retained the Hi masters. Within
months of that sale, Bennett coaxed Shaw into
leaving the music business to take over the
crucial job of managing Benwood, his
4,800-acre farm in Arkansas.
In March 1989,
Bennett passed away. While settling Bennett's
estate, Shaw discovered that during her
ten-year absence from Cream Records,
the Hi master recordings had been
sitting in California doing virtually nothing,
She also learned the Hi masters were
under various liens, including a U.S.
Copyright lien, the most difficult type to
remove.
Shaw decided what she
truly wanted to do was reactive the legendary Hi
Records and share the phenomenal Hi
master recordings with a new generation of
music lovers. Selling and borrowing on her
resources, Shaw paid off all past due liens as
the first step in her carefully crafted
business plan to re-establish the label.
Next, Shaw filed a
lawsuit against Motown Records for licensing
infractions and failure to properly exploit
the Hi Records' catalogue in the
Eighties as it had been hired to do. The
lawsuit was eventually settled in Cream/Hi's
favor. With the label's legal problems behind
her, Shaw licensed the Hi catalogue to
CEMA Special Marketing, now EMI/Capitol
Special Markets, for the United States and
Canada. She already had intact a license with
Demon Records, now Crimson Productions. That
license, however, covered only the United
Kingdom; so Shaw expanded it to include all of
Europe.
Unlike many record
company presidents, Shaw focused on
establishing good rapport with the artists
represented on her Hi masters. This
effort involved revising old artist contracts
to include provisions for past royalties and
royalty payments for formats for today and the
future. Besides believing it was the right
thing to do, Shaw wanted the Hi Records'
artists to be a continuing part of the label's
future.
Aggressive
repackaging and promotional efforts to market
the sounds of Hi's legendary artists
and producers, most noticeably Al
Green, Ann
Peebles, and Willie
Mitchell, have been tremendously
successful, netting the resources for engaging
in the riskier business of developing and
marketing new product. With the release of Taylor
and Martinez, its first new album in
twenty years, HI Records is once again
an active record label and the only legendary
Memphis label currently releasing new product.
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