The record company I signed a 3 year contract with is closing. Actually he is trying to sell the business. It has been confirmed that the company that is interested in the studio is not interested in Country or Gospel music. Although all contracts will go with the sale of the studio, I don't believe the contracts are included in the price being offered.

It has been proposed to me, by another musician, that I should make up a letter to dissolve the contract with the intentions of me keeping the songs with all rights from my second album.

It is clear that the studio has lost interest in the recording business and not only is not doing anything to help it's artists, but on part has not lived up to their part of the contract.

In this case I must look at all aspects. You may say that if the company has not fulfilled their obligations of the contract, that it should be easy to fault them for failure thus voiding the contract. But remember, this is a 3 year contract with almost 2 years left on it. There is no other time frames mentioned in the contract. So legally they don't have to do anything for 2 years and 355 days if they don't want to.

But I intend to make up a letter and see what happens. I was told by an inside source that my name had been brought up in discussion. Luckily the inside source was on my side. He asked the producer what his intentions were as far as my album was concerned, and brought up the fact that twice I had been told that a distributor has received my product and was being printed. This was not true. I waited quite awhile before booking engagements so I would have the product on hand to sell. From my first venue to the last one I did, I did not receive product and at the last minute was running around like a chicken with it's head cut off, trying to copy CD's, make labels, and print case covers. It was not a pretty site.

Lesson? Read the contract. I did read the contract, but didn't look for that line that said "a national or state release of album/or single release, will be done within the first year of finished recording."

In the contract it states that the label will receive $2 from each and every CD that is sold, with the distributor keeping $2 and the artist receiving $2. Now you, and many others I have discussed this with, may be thinking "if the artist is making the CD copies, printing the labels, and printing the case covers, the producer is not entitled to anything. But, in this legal binding contract, it does not specify that it matters who or where the product comes from, only that the producer gets $2, and of course you would have to pay the distrubuter if there was one. This is the reason I have not booked anything so far this year. I do not think it is fair that I am doing all the work for product and the producer gets a portion. He was paid for his time and trouble on the recording. And he has done nothing for me to further my career. At one time he told me Sparrow Records wanted to buy my contract, he even called me several times during the negotiations ( supposedly) and in the end turned them down because he thought if they were offering him that much money, that we may as well make that profit ourselves. Nothing happened with that either.

If you are looking over a contract, I suggest you make a list of things you expect and for sure put a time line of some sort in there as you think the events should proceed. Then if the details that are included in the contract don't come to fruition as stated, it would be much easier to get out of the contract.