quote:Originally posted by Bob from Mich:
Hey, I missed this one. Is this a song that Gord wrote?......why the lawsuit?
From my post earlier this year:
From
http://www.corfid.com/gl/biography.htm
In April of 1987, Lightfoot filed a lawsuit against Michael Masser, alleging that Masser's song "The Greatest Love of All" (recorded by Whitney Houston) stole twenty-four bars from Lightfoot's 1969 hit "If You Could Read My Mind." According to Maclean's, Lightfoot commented, "It really rubbed me the wrong way. I don't want the present-day generation to think that I stole my song from him." Unlikely, though Lightfoot himself has always remained cautious and questioning about the industry. Said Toronto promoter Bernie Fiedler, "I don't think Gordon realizes that he has a tremendous talent. When intelligentsia of the music business courted him, he felt threatened. He's a cautious man who won't take chances."
And Val Magee posted on 3/26/99:
"I believe it [the lawsuit] was settled out of court while the case was being heard. I compared the scores as printed out by Cakewalk from midi files (that was one of my first computer "music" projects; just finding midis of both took the better part of the day back then some 15 months or so ago), and - even to me whose music knowledge consists of knowing the first three months of beginner's piano - the measures borrowed were obvious.
I'd guess that the borrowing was inadvertant and it wasn't ever obvious to me when listening to the Whitney Houston recording (my husband listens to pop radio - what can I say?), but I can imagine it hit Gordon right away. I think he first heard it at his health club. Must have struck him like a ton of bricks! The timing isn't exact
but damn close, and the notes are actually slightly different (at least based on the
sequencing of the two midis I used), but the borrowing is obvious once you listen for
it, and would be very obvious to the songwriter."