Ultimate Rhoads

I knew Bob Daisley and Lee Kerslake hadn't getting any royalties from the Blizzard & Diary albums. But i always thought that the reason behind that was because of them not having any contract writing up. So when Tommy and Rudy joined the band, they would have a battle on their hands to get paid with them being replaced. I was reading through the Mick Wall book Diary of a Madman and this is what $haron Osbourne has to say. Remember this book was released in 1985 .
Talk of the Devil hadn't been anywhere near the huge commercial success both Blizzard and Diary had been, but in the long term the album served its hidden purpose: it had sparked a final legal confrontation with Don Arden and Jet records. From this time on, Sharon Osbourne became Ozzy's official manager, and Epic records were now Ozzy's official worldwide record company.
'Talk of the Devil marked the end of our association with Don' says Sharon. 'But we still had to pay him over one million pounds to let us go. And to this day he still hasn't paid Randy,Bob Daisley, or Lee Kerslake any royalties at all from those first two solo albums. The money situation with Don is incredible. For the Blizzard of Ozz album Ozzy was paid £7,500 in advance, and the same amount for the Diary of a Madman. Both albums went on to earn over five million pounds in a very short space of time indeed, and both are still selling well today. Usually, if an album is a big success you renegotiate your original deal with the record company.
So i wonder if Randy or Delores ever did get any royalties from those two albums ?

I'm sure Randy did get royalties. I heard that he spent his first royalties check on a very nice classical guitar.

GUITARIDOL5682 wrote:So i wonder if Randy or Delores ever did get any royalties from those two albums ?

Good question.....
It would fit with Bob saying that Mrs. Rhoads did sue the Osbournes for years (to get ????) but finally gave up.
It's very hard to imagine that this even could be true. But to think that Bob would make this entirely up for whatever reason doesn't make any sense either.

Question:
When someone dies who earned royalties, where do the royalties go then?
(I would assume to the family of the dead person?)

NicDots wrote:I'm sure Randy did get royalties. I heard that he spent his first royalties check on a very nice classical guitar.

When he was still alive he probably did.....

The Flying Dutchman wrote:

GUITARIDOL5682 wrote:So i wonder if Randy or Delores ever did get any royalties from those two albums ?

Good question.....
It would fit with Bob saying that Mrs. Rhoads did sue the Osbournes for years (to get ????) but finally gave up.
It's very hard to imagine that this even could be true. But to think that Bob would make this entirely up for whatever reason doesn't make any sense either.

I think it makes perfect sense. Bob hates the Osbournes and will probably say anything to make his case look good. Not to say that it's true or not true, who knows. I've heard him imply much more sinister things that the Osbounres apparently did. But why the Rhoads family would sue the Osbournes for the money that Don owed them doesn't make sense. The original contract was between Don and Randy, not Randy and Sharon. If that lawsuit happened, when did it happen? I don't see that lawsuit happening and then Delores giving her blessing to release the Tribute album.
However, if it happened post tribute, that could be why we don't see anything RR related coming out of the Ozzy camp.

NicDots wrote:But why the Rhoads family would sue the Osbournes for the money that Don owed them doesn't make sense. The original contract was between Don and Randy, not Randy and Sharon. If that lawsuit happened, when did it happen?

Daisley: That's pretty much it, I think. You said when did we first worry about when our money was coming, well, we started the lawsuit in 1981 against Jet Records and Don Arden, who is Sharon's father, and back then Ozzy and Sharon were helping us in our case against them because she'd had a major falling out with her father. Back then she was still Sharon Arden. Unbeknownst to us, in 1983 they made a deal to buy Ozzy from Jet Records and her father and own all the rights. We didn't know that. We carried on suing Jet and Don, went to court in 1986, had a settlement, a payout from him and Jet that we didn't get until 1987, but then we thought "Okay, that's taken care of that, so now maybe they'll change the credits and now maybe we'll get our money." And we were getting some money, because we'd get publishing money from Blizzard Music.

See http://www.cosmik.com/aa-august02/daisley.html

So above implies that they started to sue the Osbournes themselves in 1987 or after. One would suspect it would be the same for Mrs. Rhoads.....

NicDots wrote:However, if it happened post tribute, that could be why we don't see anything RR related coming out of the Ozzy camp.

My theory for years already, Tribute was released in 1987.....
If true all things fall into place, it almost has to. (at least to me)

I asked Bob Daisley about this and his reply was this...
Hi Shaun,
In answer to your question regarding Randy's, Lee's and my royalties, no, we didn't get paid. We were meant to and are owed our performance royalties but still haven't been paid. I know that Mrs. Rhoads was suing the Osbournes during the 80s and early 90s but I don't know the outcome fully. We recieve our song-writing royalties but not the performance royalties.

Thanks, Shaun for the reply from Bob.

So, if Randy's estate gets no royalties, then how could Mrs. Rhoads have any control over what is and what is not released with Randy's playing on it? No royalties would imply no legal rights to the music.

The Blizzard of Ozz songbook lists the copyright as:

1981 Blizzard Music Limited, 12 Thayer Street, London, W1M 5LD, England, International Copyright Secured, All Rights Reserved

1981 & 1984 Essex Music International, Inc, New York and Blizzard Music, Daytona Beach, FL International Copyright Secured All Rights Reserved Including Public Performance for Profit

Some songs have the first copyright and some have the second.


The Quiet Riot tab book had the copyrights published as "Deerand Music". So the question of whether the band was included in the copyrights is questionable. Most bands these days have separate publishing for each member of the band involved in the writing. That eliminates these sort of questions after the fact. It's a shame that music has to be such a business.

Paul I think you'll find that the Rhoads estate does in fact own all copyrights to Randy's work and as a consequence controls what can be used , released etc , it's a case here though of 'not being paid' what is/was due to him or later his estate .

- Ritchie

GUITARIDOL5682 wrote:I asked Bob Daisley about this and his reply was this...
Hi Shaun,
In answer to your question regarding Randy's, Lee's and my royalties, no, we didn't get paid. We were meant to and are owed our performance royalties but still haven't been paid. I know that Mrs. Rhoads was suing the Osbournes during the 80s and early 90s but I don't know the outcome fully. We recieve our song-writing royalties but not the performance royalties.

Thanx for that, all pieces falll into place......

Paul Wolfe wrote:So, if Randy's estate gets no royalties, then how could Mrs. Rhoads have any control over what is and what is not released with Randy's playing on it? No royalties would imply no legal rights to the music.

What I read from that quote from Bob's interview I posted at this page is that that they do get song-writing royalties and I assume Randy as well. But what they didn't get are performance royalties for recording the music. It makes some sense because with Bob and Lee being erased from Blizzard and Diary it looks the Osbournes tried to 'solve' that problem.
So we are talking about two types of royalties.

If Randy's estate holds copyrights, then they would have a say in the use of the music. If they are not being paid what is owed, why would they allow the music to be used? Seems like simple math to me.