From the MCRFB news archives:
NELSON LANDS 20 -YEAR CONTRACT WITH LABEL
HOLLYWOOD — Rick Nelson last week signed a 20-year contract with Decca Records which guarantees him more than a million dollars in disk revenue, Billboard has learned. The contract, after a month of intense negotiations, was officially in effect at 3 p.m., Thursday (January 3) when Decca signatures were affixed to the label’s contract paper in New York. A separate contract, providing for two films featuring Rick (for Decca’s sister firm, Universal Pictures), also was signed.
Thus was ended one of the hottest bidding battles by record labels of recent years trying to get a top-selling artist. As exclusively reported by Billboard (October 27), bids for Nelson started flying last fall when it was learned that the young singer’s contract with Lew Chudd’s Imperial Records was expiring December 31. Labels seeking Nelson were Capitol, Challenge, Columbia, Dot, Everest and RCA Victor.
Decca was a late entry in the bidding. It opened its negotiations the last week of November.
Ozzie Bargains
Throughout the hot scramble for Rick, the singer’s father, Ozzie Nelson, who has guided his son’s career, held out for a guaranteed $1,000 a week over a 25-year period. The reported Universal Pictures’ deal may more than make up for the remaining five years a t $1,000 a week previously demanded.
Actually, the $1,000-per-week guaranteed payment is not unparalleled for Nelson. This was the basis with Chudd during Nelson’s six-year with Imperial. Including that guarantee, Nelson had earned in excess of $700,000 in the six-year period he had been under Chudd’s Imperial label.
Surplus royalties earned beyond the guaranteed $1,000 a week were accumulated by Imperial in a special royalty reserve account. Now that Rick and Imperial had parted ways, Imperial will pay the singer a lump sum of more than $400,000 in accumulated excess royalties.
Six-Year Climb
Rick’s meteoric rise as a disk seller occurred little more than six years ago when he launched his recording career as an adjunct to his TV acting (ABC TV’s “Ozzie And Harriet Show) with a single on Verve Records.
His first disk release, ironically, was Fats Domino’s “I’m Walkin.” His second release found him rising on Imperial Records’ artist roster, and it was there that Nelson climbed into his present top status as a best selling recording artist.
During his six years with Imperial, Nelson scored with approximately 10 top sellers, of which six passed the million mark in disk sales.
Decca can be expected to hit the market early in the year with its first Rick Nelson releases in the new year 1963.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRr7fZQicM8
(Information and news source: Billboard; January 12, 1963).
