- guardian.co.uk, Sunday June 9 2002 11.41 BST
- The Observer, Sunday June 9 2002
Gus Dudgeon, who produced 'Your Song' for Elton John and helped guide his sound throughout the Seventies, claims he was only paid a £250 advance for his work on 'Space Oddity'. Royalty investigator David Morgan, who has taken up Dudgeon's case, said: 'Nobody's taken Gus's claim seriously until now. But I've seen the contract and I know he's got an entitlement.'
'Space Oddity', which introduced the world to Major Tom, was recorded in one day at Trident Studios in London in 1969. After the BBC used it in coverage of the first moon landing later that year it shot to No 5 in the charts. A re-release in 1975 sent it to No 1.
Dudgeon had already worked with the Rolling Stones and Small Faces by the time he teamed up with Bowie. Morgan claims he was promised a 2 per cent cut of sales - 'a standard-type deal 30 years ago' - but never saw a penny.
'When I started producing in the Sixties I was very green,' said Dudgeon. 'It was only when I started seeing decent royalties rolling in from my Elton records that I realised the true value of that track.'
The 59-year-old, who lives in a five-bedroom house in Surrey, wants a one-off settlement of £1 million, or a more complicated cut of earnings, plus interest and damages stretching back 30 years. 'We've opened a dialogue with Bowie and the record companies concerned, but they're fighting our claim,' said Morgan. The case is complicated by an ownership issue. Five years ago, Bowie became the first pop star to raise money on the stock market. The so-called 'Bowie Bonds' earned him a £37.7m advance on the future earnings of his back catalogue.
'Technically, they belong to Bowie, but they have in effect been leased to the New York Stock Exchange through a securities company,' said Morgan. 'However, the ownership will in due course revert to him.'
Dudgeon says he is a reluctant litigant. 'The business I'm in is extremely mercenary and has no regard for people any more,' he said. 'I've been trying to do something about the situation for years, but I've always drawn a blank. Launching any legal action is prohibitively expensive and the record companies count on most people not being able to afford it. I'm lucky enough to be able to afford to mount such a legal action.'
Bowie's new album, Heathen (released tomorrow), has been described as 'his best since 1980's Scary Monsters ', and he curates this year's Meltdown Festival on London's South Bank, which kicks off this week. A spokesman for Bowie refused to comment.
