Did Elvis Steal Songs From Arthur 'Big Boy'Crudup?

Like a lot of people, I was once under the impression that Elvis effectively stole songs from Arthur ‘Big Boy’ Crudup, an American blues singer-songwriter from way back in the forties. I could not have been more mistaken. Or was I? Read on and you will find out.

Arthur’s recording career began sometime in the 1940s, and his song That’s All Right Moma was recorded in 1946 and released on the RCA label in 1949.

A few of Arthur’s songs from that period included “Mean Old ‘Frisco Blues”, “Who’s Been Foolin’ You” and “That’s All Right.” These and other songs like “Rock Me Mama”, “So Glad You’re Mine”, and “My Baby Left Me” were later recorded by a variety of highly successful artists such as Elton John, Slade, and Rod Stewart. Preceding those by a number of years, in 1954 Elvis recorded an uptempo version of That’s All Right Moma which was a great success.

Despite the popularity of Arthur’s songs, the man remained poor. And this is perhaps what led to the accusations that Arthur was being ripped off by those artists, starting with Elvis. As it turned out, that was most definitely the case. However, it all started with his manager, Lester Melrose.

For a start, Melrose never registered Arthur Crudup as a songwriter with ACAS. And this had ramifications further down the line, as you will see toward the end of this article.

Lester was known to pay his artists a small fee for a recording session and promised 35 percent of all royalties. In reality, Lester treated that paltry recording fee as the only payment he should ever have to pay. Occasionally Arthur would receive a check from Lester for ten or fifteen dollars. As you can imagine, Lester ended up a very rich man whilst the artists he supposedly represented all remained poor.

Despite not being able to play a single note of music, Lester Melrose owned the copyright to three thousand songs. In the 1950s Lester decided to retire to Florida and sold his company to a publisher called Hill Range Publishing. And still, despite the huge success of his songs, Arthur was not being paid any royalties. Why? Because Hill Range simply carried on with the deception of Lester Melrose.

In the 1950s, Arthur quit recording, saying, “I realized I was making everybody rich, and here I was poor”. To simply survive Arthur turned to a succession of manual laboring jobs.

In the 1960s, a man called Dick Waterman met and convinced Arthur to get back into the music business. In 1972, as Arthur’s new manager, Dick Waterman was contacted to be told that an agreement had been reached with Hill Range Publishing.

Sadly, Hill Range tried to short-change Arthur and the agreement fell apart. This was quite a blow, not least of all since in 1974 Arthur passed away, penniless, never having received a dime of all the money owed to him. However, this was not the end of the matter.

Hill Range had agreed to sell their music interests to Chappel Music Publishing. But, the deal was dependent upon Hill Range settling their dispute with Arthur before any deal could go ahead.

In 1974 Hill Range finally paid 248,000 dollars to Arthur’s estate, and this was just the beginning. With full copyright at last restored to the deceased Arthur’s sons, over the ensuing decades payments amounted to some three million dollars.

All that remains to finally put the record straight is for Arthur ‘Big Boy’ Crudup to be inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as the true ‘Father of Rock and Roll’ that he was. This way Arthur’s legacy as a true pioneer will continue to be remembered for all time.

And so, the answer to that thorny question, did Elvis steal from Arthur ‘Big Boy’ Cudrup, it’s complicated, as they say. Here is a quote from Wikipedia about Hill Range Publishing.

“In 1955, the Aberbachs were responsible for setting up an unprecedented arrangement in which the publishing rights to all songs recorded by emerging star performer Elvis Presley were split 50:50 between the Hill & Range company and Presley and his management.”

From that quotation, one could deduce that Elvis indirectly, if not personally, got undue royalties from Arthur. After Lester Melrose sold his company to Hill Range, that would have been complete with all rights to Arthur Crudup’s songs. And if the royalties from Arthur’s songs were being divided up between Hill Range and Elvis on a 50–50 basis, then yes, it would appear that Elvis was gaining some financial benefit from Arthur Crudup’s royalties that he was NOT entitled to.

And the fact that Hill Range recognized that they owed a great deal of money to Arthur Crudup, confirms that Arthur had been well and truly stitched up for quite a long time.

For a more detailed investigation into the story about Arthur ‘Big Boy’ Crudup getting ripped off by Elvis, (but an investigation that I believe comes to the wrong conclusion) take a look at the following account of some of the facts of the matter.

"Did Elvis have anything to do with depriving Arthur Crudup of royalties he was due as a songwriter? (I believe yes) No. Again, the opposite happened: Elvis’ recordings of Crudup’s songs provided his estate with a fortune in songwriter royalties, if posthumously." Aug 12, 2022

Elvis Didn’t “Steal” a Darn Thing from Arthur Crudup! — Medium

Medium https://medium.com › elvis-thats-the-way-it-was › elvis-d…