The Anatomy Of The Brand

The Anatomy Of The Brand
The Drifters first appeared in New York City in 1953. Shortly after that, in 1954, the group came under the management of George McKinley Treadwell, a jazz trumpeter. As recorded, Treadwell played in the house band at Monroe's in Harlem in 1941–1942, then worked with Benny Carter later in 1942 in Florida. He had previously managed other musicians, including Sammy Davis, Jr., Billie Holiday, and Sarah Vaughn. Mr. Treadwell managed the group through The Drifters, Inc., a New York corporation that he formed in 1954. Though holding most of the stock of this corporation, Treadwell operated the business along with other partners Irv Nahan Lewis C. Lebish, Margaret Harmon, and Abraham Teller, not known to most of the public and who were, for the most part, the financial-stockholder backbone to the company. Nahan handled most of the entertainment side of the brand while Lebish acted as accountant and bookkeeper. Overall they held complete artistic control over every aspect of The Drifters as an entity. Assisted by his wife Fayrene Treadwell, they hired and fired Drifters singers. They paid the singers a weekly salary; they selected the music and arrangements and made all musical and business decisions relating to living performances and recording contracts. Yet during the very early years of the Drifters, as reported through interviews with the late Bill Pinkney. It was Atlantic Records head Ahmet Ertegun and particularly vice president Jerry Wexler who was the biggest inspiration for the group. They played a big part in forming The Drifters—engaging with all the legal issues that have surfaced over the years relating to the Drifters Trademark, one of the most recent being the Treadwell versus Marshak Federal case.                                                                                                                                Where did the name "Drifters" derive? The Atlantic Recording group was neither the first nor the last to use it. Other unrelated but legitimate groups (that is, groups not pretending to be Atlantic's Drifters or derivatives of them). Soon appeared on the London label (1949-50), Coral label (1950), Excelsior label (1951), Class label (1953), and Crown label (1954); as noted in Marv Goldberg's notebook "The Drifters," the early years. Many were country and western bands both here in the United States and abroad in Europe and had used the name the Drifters, such as the Carolina Drifters, the Evergreen Drifters, the Texas Drifters, the Ozark Drifters, Johnny Whitlock, and the Drifters, the Dixieland Drifters, and the Dixie Drifters. Abroad in England, there was Cliff Richards and The Drifters and a white group from Michigan, Jimmy Williams. And The Drifters. For the most part, the Drifters name was quite common to use in the entertainment industry, though other factors can determine its use under trademark classification. The facts on how the Atlantic group of Drifters acquired its name have been somewhat sketchy, but it's said that Clyde McPhatter had been toying around with that name for some time. It was sometime in 1954 that George Treadwell acquired ownership of The Drifter's name, reportedly from Clyde McPhatter, who at a later date regretted what he had done as it started a chain of events that have lasted to this day in dooming the singers who have performed as Drifters to gross exploitation. Most who have died broke in its 60-year history. Drifter brand contracts were clever in construction during the early years as they left very little wiggle room once signed. 
In the employment agreements, the artist guaranteed at least thirty (30) weeks of employment during any year that the artist performed for the company. Further, in some cases, more or less a net sum of $4500.00 is guaranteed during the first year. After that, the employer would be relieved and discharged of any liability or the financial obligation. This virtually made any royalty that the artist would have been entitled to null and void. Drifters Incorporated signed directly with Atlantic Records on the back end of most contracts. The brand itself was the artist, not the individual singers who sang the songs. Treadwell and his business partners were very wise in engineering their deals. One can get advances that were not returnable or recouped by or seen as advances against past or future royalties in one report. This type of deal was made in securing the services of the Late Drifter singing legend Johnny Moore in 1961 for Atlantic Records, according to legal court transcripts during the period. The Dollar worth was twenty-two thousand five hundred ($22,500.00) dollars. It is doubtful if Mr. Moore ever saw any of this advancement.
On the whole, members in any of the given early years made know more than 150.00 dollars per week, and after the 60, the weekly scale ranged from three hundred ($300.00) to one thousand dollars ($1000.00). It was during the 90's that the practices of the brand were unraveled when Charlie Thomas won his royalty case against Mrs. Treadwell, who now managed Drifters Inc. During the 70"s there was much controversy on who's who on the many recordings of the period as it was a practice of the brand to replace members of the group with session singer to get around royalty issues. Voices would be overdubbed by session singers and or tracks mixed down to hide the original voices.
In many cases, the session logs were conveniently lost, so there was no record of who was on those sessions. Much of these practices took place as a result of a controversy over the Drifter's "Now Album," where former members who at the time were US AFTRA union members were not paid according to union scale. US entertainment Federations do not recognize third-party entities, such as the case with Drifters Inc., who was the defacto artist. In a letter dated September 24th, 1974, to AFTRA relating to the recordings "Blessing In Disguise," "Love Games," and "Down On The Beach Tonight." Martin E Rindsberg, then attorney for Drifters Inc., attempts to convince the Federation that the recording session in the United States for these songs was no longer than 3 hrs over two days that the Bell group was in the studio. The total recording time exceeded over 15 hrs in duration. Drifters Inc attempted to pay the artist a hundred ($100.00) dollars per person though the scale was four hundred and sixty-five (465.00) dollars. This Payment was unacceptable to the Federation, and demand was given to Bell Records to deliver the funds as the Producers at the time under Cook away Productions were not signatories of the US Federation. Still, the recording company would be responsible for the artist's top talent and pension and welfare payment. In this case, the artist and the Federation's log sheets from May Fair Studios in New York were in full possession.