How would BBs history have played out if Murry hadn't sold the catalog in '69?

[CenturyDeprived]

For one, I feel that this unfortunate event led the 70s/80s/90s BBs to be more money-grubbing and eventually in "sell-out" mode more than would have been the case if they'd had the (much) bigger bucks in their bank accounts which the catalog would've made possible. I'm sure many people would say that the BBs have always made $ a big priority in their careers, even in their mid 60s glory days, but I think Murry's sale of the catalog had many indirect consequences. (Some of them may have indirectly been good consequences).

Would M&B still be at it on the road?
Would the BRI voters have let M&B have the rights to tour with the name (to pad their own pockets) if their pockets were much fuller already?

It certainly seems like money was a big motivating factor in the band going on for as many years as it has.
Especially if the BBs felt "screwed" out of money that was rightfully theirs, and they were determined to be as rich as they "should have been" no matter what.

Perhaps they'd have broken up in the 70s?  (Then we wouldn't have "Love You", and that would be most unfortunate).
I simply cannot imagine the albums, tours, etc. post '69 turning out the same way in this alternate scenario. Big things would've been different in a major way, methinks.

I guess ultimately I wonder if Murry's sale of SOT eventually led to a series of events causing artistic decay within the band.

[clack]

Didn't most 60's bands get screwed over by their management? The Rolling Stones? The Animals? The Grateful Dead?

Plus, back in the day most people in the industry though that pop music was ephemeral.  I mean, did the Murray deal really seem that outrageous when it was made, in 1970?

[CenturyDeprived]

Didn't most 60's bands get screwed over by their management? The Rolling Stones? The Animals? The Grateful Dead?

Plus, back in the day most people in the industry though that pop music was ephemeral.  I mean, did the Murray deal really seem that outrageous when it was made, in 1970?

That may be true to an extent, but I imagine that to the Boys, it must've seemed like even more of a screw-job, having come from their father/uncle.

I imagine it hurt even worse to have something (their catalog) that was in their hands just bone-headedly slip out of their fingers in the manner in which it did, and the eventual repercussions of that were immense to their career tragectory, IMO.

I feel that the Boys losing the catalog like they did eventually led to the band to becoming bigger workaholics (and less about the "art") than they'd have been otherwise.

[Magic Transistor Radio]

I don't think so. It would be another 4 years before they "sold out" When Endless Summer went platinum. But if they did break up, I think we would still get Love You as a Brian solo album. Followed by Adult Child.

[CenturyDeprived]

Maybe Endless Summer would have played out exactly as it did, but I think, in particular, that the relentless touring of the 80s, 90s, and beyond would have been a different story.

I don't think many people can deny, even hard-core fans of the band like myself, that the brand name of the band has been "whored out" to an unimaginably ridiculous extent over the years, and I have to think that that is in part due to the bandmembers trying to make up for this unfortunate snafu in the history of the band.

[Robbie Mac]

As underhanded as Murry was, the idea of setting up an in-house publishing company was incredibly smart.  The underhanded part, of course, was that the publishing was for the immediate family (and even being related was no guarantee against Murry ripping you off). The Beatles weren't majority owners of Northern Songs and wound up being outmaneuvered and ripped off by Dick James and Lew Grade. The Beach Boys, or at least the Wilsons were in far better shape which was, then lost when Murry sold the catalog.  The low price was the salt being rubbed into the wound. I think had they held on to the publishing, they would have been far better off financially and might not have needed to tour as much therefore ensuring that the brand name retains a greater value.

[KittyKat]

Did the Beach Boys own Sea of Tunes with Murry, or was it just Brian and Murry? I don't remember. In any case, Brian wrote the majority of songs, so he had the most to gain/lose by it. I don't think the rest of the band, apart from some credits for Mike, had that much riding on it. They made their money from touring, not songwriting. Also, the publisher only takes a percentage of royalties, not the entire amount. So, for example, Brian still made a few pennies or fractions of pennies as the songwriter no matter who owned the publishing. By selling Sea of Tunes, he lost his publisher portion of the royalties, but not the whole thing.

Also, Irving-Almo did well by the Beach Boys catalog. Part of what publishers do is place songs in soundtracks and commercials, as well as get other artists to cover the songs. I/A certainly did get the Beach Boys' material that they owned into a lot of film soundtracks and TV commercials (Sunkist, 409 cleaner, etc.). Maybe if Brian had continued to own Sea of Tunes the same thing would have happened, or maybe not. The Beach Boys didn't have the best track record as far as getting people to run things for them.

[mikeddonn]

I will venture a guess and say that the only 2 Beach Boys affected were Brian and Mike (who wasn't even credited on certain songs at the time).  The others lost nothing financially as they weren't partners in the company to my knowledge.  In fact with Murray not controlling publishing the others might have benefited as they set up their own deals and contributed more songs to albums, something Murray was not keen on in the earlier years.  I'm sure for Brian it was more to do with personal betrayal by his Dad and a lack of belief from Murray about the long-term worth of the songs.  I don't think it had any bearing on the rest of their careers.

[Custom Machine]

My recollection is that Sea of Tunes was owned by Murry and Brian.  Assuming that was the case, whatever portion of Sea of Tunes Brian owned should have been the portion of the sale proceeds that Brian received, although I have no idea if that happened.  The way the story has been told over the years it's easy to assume that Murry kept all of the proceeds.

At the time it took place, the sale would not have effected the other members of the band in a monetary sense, since any songwriting credits are paid out by the publisher at the going rate, regardless of who the publisher is.  If Murry had not sold Sea of Tunes, and assuming his sons were the beneficiaries of his estate, then when Murry died in 1973 Brian would have kept his share and Brian, Dennis, and Carl would have split Murry's share of the ownership of Sea of Tunes, the value of which began increasing dramatically starting around the time of the release of Endless Summer a year after Murry's death.

[Magic Transistor Radio]

Another major reason the Beach Boys went down hill is due to the most talented song writers were unreliable with their drug addictions. Best case, Brian should have taken over again in the mid 80s, had Landy not abused the situation.

[Cam Mott]

I believe the sale of SOT only directly effected Brian [and Murry and Audrey] if anyone. Maybe it made Brian more money conscious and grubbing. It would be understandable. I don't see it and I don't see it as regards the rest of the BBs either. Probably the only diff it made was they became more publishing conscious.

[Robbie Mac]

Here is an interesting scenario? Does anyone think the band's fortunes could have changed if BRI had been able to pony up the cash to buy Sea of Tunes? After all it went for significantly less than a million dollars in 1969 funds.

[adamghost]

I think it would have had a major effect, but not for the reasons you think.

It's correct that it probably would not have had a big impact on the bottom line for anyone in the band but Brian.  But the psychological blow for Brian was apparently huge -- how could it have not been?  That would be enough to send ANYONE to bed for a month, mental illness or no.  You could make the argument -- and I would, having gone down that path myself in a less spectacular way at points in my own life -- that Brian's withdrawal into drugs and alcohol was as much a product of one long streak of bad events that sapped his confidence as it was for his mental illness.  And in the catalog of events, the sale of Sea of Tunes symbolically was huge.  Your own dad sold you out, didn't believe in you.  Man.

I think Brian's decline would have still happened, but I think it might have been slower and less severe if the Sea of Tunes deal had not gone down.  The failure of SUNFLOWER after the Warner's deal seems to have been the final straw, but Brian might have been able to weather that setback better had he not already swallowed Murry's betrayal, and participated more fully in the early '70s albums.  That's my take on it, anyway.

[KittyKat]

Isn't there a bit of irony in the idea that retaining ownership in Sea of Tunes would have resulted in the Beach Boys not pursuing the oldies path? Most of the songs in the catalog are the surf and car songs, and the reason why it's so lucrative is people have continued to buy most of the Beach Boys' catalog from that period. By the way, $700,000 is around four and a half million in today's dollars. Still not much compared to what it's been estimated to be worth, but in 1969, the oldies phenomenon hadn't yet taken hold.

The Beach Boys did try to sell Sea of Tunes themselves, according to the Gaines book. The deal supposedly would have given the band an amount of cash, and the rights would have eventually reverted back to Brian/Murry after a set period of time. I've never seen the dollar figure for that proposed deal, or the number of years it would have taken for the rights to be reinstated to Sea of Tunes. It's possible the latter may have been a date far, far in the future, or it would have had some kind of catch in it resulting in the rights never going back. Murry was supposedly upset at that and that's why he did the Sea of Tunes deal, which involved forging Brians signature. Not sure if Brian ever got any money out of it, either. Though as it was the other deal would have resulted in the band itself getting money, instead of Brian and Murry entirely. That sounds like an unfair deal and Brian would have not been given a fair share in either deal.

[Surfer]

I looked up Sea of Tunes Publishing and it's a house where Murray lived in so how could Murray do that and should be arrested for take the money to buy him self a new car with that money

[leggo of my ego]

I looked up Sea of Tunes Publishing and it's a house where Murray lived in so how could Murray do that and should be arrested for take the money to buy him self a new car with that money

Well that hard-assed bastard didnt live much longer to enjoy the ill gotten gains, anyway.

justice caught up with him.

[bgas]

I looked up Sea of Tunes Publishing and it's a house where Murray lived in so how could Murray do that and should be arrested for take the money to buy him self a new car with that money

You should be arrested for making posts like this one

[KittyKat]

Murry set up Sea of Tunes out of his house (so of course the address was the same as the company), before the Beach Boys were successful, just as he was his manager before they were successful. He risked his family fortune to help get his sons in the business. That doesn't mean that selling Sea of Tunes without Brian's permission was right, but Murry wasn't a total crook.