You Don't Own Me by Trevor Tolliver

Author:Trevor Tolliver
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: biography
Publisher: Backbeat
Published: 2015-08-23T16:00:00+00:00

Track Ten

A BLANK PIECE OF PAPER AND A HOPE

It’s almost incomprehensible to think that the girl who sold millions of records for Mercury, who was the youthful voice behind the classics “It’s My Party,” “Judy’s Turn to Cry,” “You Don’t Own Me,” “She’s a Fool,” and “California Nights,” could be left with no money, no reserves. But that was the case in 1971—the teen superstar of the ’60s had nothing left.

“I haven’t really taken care of myself financially,” Gore confessed in 2006, “and that’s one of the things that I regret most. That’s one of the things I am trying to deal with now.” While her trusted father had managed her personal schedules, prescribed managers had handled the singer’s monetary affairs. Her contract had entitled her to a 2 percent royalty that only grew in minuscule increments as she sold more records, but once Mercury deducted the cost of studio time, musicians, touring costs, payments to miscellaneous personnel, and what the label determined were “exorbitant fees” that the singer had incurred (if something was so much as Xeroxed, she was billed for it), there was simply no way Gore could have amassed the fortune one would have expected her vastly successful ’60s career to have earned. “Anyone who thinks I could retire and buy a house in the South of France is badly mistaken,” Lesley quipped to Alan Betrock. As a matter of fact, she had received one check in 1963 in the amount of $16,000—and that was it. But as a sixteen-year-old entering an environment she knew nothing about, she had no reason to suspect the worst of the people representing her. She wasn’t even sure after it was recorded that “It’s My Party” would see the light of day—Mercury president Irving Green had approached the young singer to soften the harsh possibility of an unissued single by saying, “Now, sweetheart, if this never gets released, I don’t want you to be disappointed.”

But Lesley was in good company; the same fiscal fate met other hit makers of the decade like Del Shannon (“Runaway”) and Little Eva (“The Locomotion”), who received a lump sum once, then struggled for the duration of their careers. The Teen Queens, who hit big with “Eddie My Love,” later plummeted into such despair that ten years after their massive record, both sisters would be dead of drugs and suicide. Imagine Madonna, Britney Spears, Taylor Swift, or Lady Gaga barely scraping by with their cavalcade of gigantic global hit songs, albums, and concerts.

But no one was directing the young artists back then, or offering sage advice, or guarding the best interests of the vulnerable female teen idols. In Girl Groups, author Alan Betrock shrewdly points out that the ruling powers behind the scenes would not have accrued their own fortunes or expanded their labels without the fresh, young talent they were exploiting—the happenstance “Iko Iko” wouldn’t have seen vinyl if not for the Dixie Cups fooling around with some extra studio time; Phil Spector couldn’t have

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