In last night's Spreecast with Dr Funkenberry and Bobby Z, because of the audio connection problems I had, Funkenberry mentioned something about Prince being in a documentary about Larry Graham. If anybody saw the spreecast, can you shed more light on that and what else was covered last night.

It was mentioned at the spreecast, but also talked about in the Billboard interview. He worked on an 83 minute Larry Graham documentary that includes old TV appearances and such but they can't clear the music ($500,000). Again causing him to bring up the issue of ownership.

To me, I think it's cool that Prince is working on a documentary for his friend Larry Graham. And the fact, that Prince is doing this out of love is even more cool. I will buy the Prince issue of Billboard for the full article, but in the context sovembol put it, now I understand, why Prince is so sensitive about ownership of masters.

Prince can't clear $500,000 ?

But why should they have to pay That much to include music that Larry wrote..clearly is giving his permission and still can't legally use it, Unless they pay those fees.

Its kind of like.. I painted This picture.. but I'm not allowed to hang it in my own house.

That's what I thought at first, but there must be some more expenses associated with the documentary that is blocking its production.

sovembol said:

But why should they have to pay That much to include music that Larry wrote..clearly is giving his permission and still can't legally use it, Unless they pay those fees.

Its kind of like.. I painted This picture.. but I'm not allowed to hang it in my own house.

If the documentary includes music from LG's days with Sly and The Family Stone, then that's another story. Sly reportedly sold his music to Michael Jackson and the licensing fees I can imagine are high as hell.

Dang, your right.. story goes Sly sold the rights to Jackson in 1984 for One Million.. this story just gets stranger.

Why doesn't he team up with some cable tv network.. then they could broadcast it and finance it thru commercials to help pay the fees, then they could turn around and release it on DVD.

Everybody's happy...

http://www.soul-patrol.com/funk/sly.htm

Here's a clip of Larry Graham accepting the R&B Foundation Award at the Apollo Theater in 2001 and LG takes a shot at "The Master". Not hard to figure out who he is talking about.

sovembol said:

Why doesn't he team up with some cable tv network.. then they could broadcast it and finance it thru commercials to help pay the fees, then they could turn around and release it on DVD.

Everybody's happy...

I honestly don't believe Prince has explored that possibility, but if he does, I would guess that either TVOne or Centric would pick it up.

sovembol said:

Why doesn't he team up with some cable tv network.. then they could broadcast it and finance it thru commercials to help pay the fees, then they could turn around and release it on DVD.

Everybody's happy...

But wouldn't that network than own that doc?

Prince turned down being interviewed for Spike Lee's BAD25 but was interviewed for LG documentary?

bashraka said:

sovembol said:

But why should they have to pay That much to include music that Larry wrote..clearly is giving his permission and still can't legally use it, Unless they pay those fees.

Its kind of like.. I painted This picture.. but I'm not allowed to hang it in my own house.

Why can't Morris and the boys release an album under their name, The Time?

It's interesting that Prince is balking at paying the licensing fees for music included for a Larry Graham documentary when The Original 7ven had the same issues with Prince about paying to have the The Time's music in their documentary. I couldn't even imagine Prince in front of a camera being part of a documentary, especially when he has turned down countless requests to be interviewed for so many.

RRA said:

sovembol said:

Why doesn't he team up with some cable tv network.. then they could broadcast it and finance it thru commercials to help pay the fees, then they could turn around and release it on DVD.

Everybody's happy...

But wouldn't that network than own that doc?

$500,000 (if thats true) plus the cost of making the documentary is way to much for any tv network to pay, especially for a documentary. A documentary at that rate would be something very high end like a David Attenborough show. Top gear for example in the UK costs $700,000 per show but its sold all over the world so it makes money, sadly a LG show wouldn'nt on those figures.

I think the show would need to come in less than $50,000 for a channel to touch it.

bashraka said:

It's interesting that Prince is balking at paying the licensing fees for music included for a Larry Graham documentary when The Original 7ven had the same issues with Prince about paying to have the The Time's music in their documentary. I couldn't even imagine Prince in front of a camera being part of a documentary, especially when he has turned down countless requests to be interviewed for so many.

thats just not the same situation at all to me. like it or not, the Time's music was basically for the most part prince. would those songs be there without prince? no. he wrote them, recorded almost everything himself, it was Prince, just under a different name. Larry Graham not being able to use his own music from warner bros is different, that was all larry's music, he should have control of it.

[Edited 1/25/13 16:20pm]

sovembol said:

But why should they have to pay That much to include music that Larry wrote..clearly is giving his permission and still can't legally use it, Unless they pay those fees.

Its kind of like.. I painted This picture.. but I'm not allowed to hang it in my own house.

Why can't Morris and the boys release an album under their name, The Time?

I hope that this show pans out because some of Larry Graham's music actually sounds like Prince especially with songs like your love, have faith in me, and the acoustic bass playing on sunshine,love and music.

bashraka said:

In last night's Spreecast with Dr Funkenberry and Bobby Z, because of the audio connection problems I had, Funkenberry mentioned something about Prince being in a documentary about Larry Graham. If anybody saw the spreecast, can you shed more light on that and what else was covered last night.