Songwriter Steve Earle on Monday withdrew from the ongoing class action lawsuit against Universal Music Group for a fire from 2008 that destroyed an undetermined number of master recordings.
With Earle pulling out of the suit, only Jane Petty, who is representing the late Tom Petty’s estate, remains.
“Plaintiff Steve Earle hereby dismisses without prejudice his individual claims, and withdraws as a putative class representative in the above-entitled action,” the filing obtained by TheWrap reads. “Plaintiff reserves his rights to proceed in this matter as an absent class member.”
Earlier this month, lawyers for Soundgarden and Tupac Shakur also pulled out of the lawsuit. The band Hole was removed from the lawsuit in August after it was determined none of the band’s masters were damaged.
The lawsuit came about following a 2019 New York Times article that estimated some half a million masters were lost in the fire, including work by Nirvana, Elton John and Sonic Youth confirmed among the losses. UMG however has disputed the total amount of lost masters and damage.
While UMG confirms that assets were lost in the fire, its continued focus is evaluating what was and wasn’t lost. The New York Times estimates assets from “hundreds more artists,” including Dr. Martin Luther King, were affected by the blaze.
Petty’s widow is suing for breach of contract — revenue sharing, breach of contract — bailment, negligence, reckless conduct, conversion and misrepresentation by omission. They claim the warehouse the masters (the original source from which all copies are produced) was a “firetrap.” The suit also says the plaintiffs are entitled to a percentage of the substantial funds UMG recovered from its insurance claims after the fire.
“The plaintiffs’ lawyers have already been informed that none of the masters for four of their five clients were affected by the fire — and the one other client was alerted years earlier and UMG and the artist, working together, were still able to locate a high-quality source for a reissue project,” UMG said in a prior statement to TheWrap from last month. “Recognizing the lack of merit of their original claims, plaintiffs’ attorneys are now willfully and irresponsibly conflating lost assets (everything from safeties and videos to artwork) with original album masters, in a desperate attempt to inject substance into their meritless legal case. Over the last eight months, UMG’s archive team has diligently and transparently responded to artist inquiries, and we will not be distracted from completing our work, even as the plaintiffs’ attorneys pursue these baseless claims.”
Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.
The Grammys and Black Music: A Timeline of Snubs and Embarrassments (Photos)
The 2018 Grammy nominations were a triumph for diversity, with far more hip-hop and R&B nominees in the top categories than ever before.
In a way, it shouldn't come as a surprise that an organization devoted to supporting and honoring music would recognize the current ascendance of hip-hop as the dominant popular music form. But it is something of a delicious shock, because since they began in the 1950s, the Grammys have not exactly been inclusive.
No hip-hop song, for instance, has ever won Record of the Year or Song of the Year. You could argue that they’ve been shortsighted when it comes to rock music and Latin music and jazz and other genres, too, that there’s an inevitable conservatism that comes from having a huge body of voters considering such a vast musical landscape.
But the decades worth of snubs and oversights are not pretty. Scroll through TheWrap's timeline:
1959
At the first Grammys, the Best Rhythm & Blues Performance category was won by a white group, the Champs, with “Tequila.” Ella Fitzgerald was the only African American nominated in the Record of the Year, Album of the Year and Song of the Year categories, which were won by Domenico Modugno’s “Nel Blu Dipinto di Blu (Volare)” (record and song) and Henry Mancini’s “The Music From Peter Gunn” (album).
William P. Gottlieb/Creative Commons
1968
At the 10th Grammy show, one of the top three awards is finally won by black performers: The Fifth Dimension, who win Record of the Year for “Up, Up and Away,” written by white songwriter Jimmy Webb.
CMA-Marc Gordon Productions-management
1976
After 18 years, Natalie Cole becomes the first black performer to win Best New Artist.
Lawren/Flickr
1981
It's the year of Donna Summer’s “Bad Girls,” Michael Jackson’s “Off the Wall,” Prince’s “Dirty Mind,” Smokey Robinson’s “Crusin’” and the debuts of the Sugarhill Gang and Kurtis Blow. But the Album of the Year, Song of the Year, Record of the Year and Best New Artist awards all go to a wimpy white guy named Christopher Cross.
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1986
Prince is nominated for Album of the Year for the second and last time for “Sign o’ the Times.” That album, “Purple Rain” and “1999” will eventually enter the Grammy Hall of Fame, but he will never win the award
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1988
Public Enemy’s “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back,” the highest ranked hip-hop album in Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, is not nominated for any Grammys. But the Record of the Year and Song of the Year awards do go to a black artist: Bobby McFerrin, for “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”
Steve Jurvetson/Creative Commons
1989
DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince (aka Will Smith) win the first-ever rap Grammy for "Parents Just Don't Understand." The award was not presented during the televised portion of the ceremony, and in protest Smith led a boycott of the show. (But DJ Jazzy Jeff did show up to accept the Grammy.)
1991
More than a decade after rap music began to revolutionize popular music, MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This” becomes the first hip-hop song to receive a Record of the Year nomination. It loses to Phil Collins’ “Another Day in Paradise.”
Philippe Rous from Strasbourg
2006
Kayne West’s “Late Registration” beats Eminem’s “Encore” in the Best Rap Album category. This remains the only one of the seven years in which a white artist was nominated in the category that the white artist did not win.
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2008
Jazz keyboardist Herbie Hancock becomes the most recent black artist to win Album of the Year. He does so for an album of Joni Mitchell songs.
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2010
Taylor Swift’s “Fearless” beats Beyonce’s “I Am … Sasha Fierce” for Album of the Year. This comes four months after she beats Beyonce at the MTV Video Music Awards, where her acceptance speech is interrupted by Kanye West’s infamous “imma let you finish” moment.
Christopher Polk/Getty Images
2014
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis win the Best Rap Album award over Drake, Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar and Kanye West, the sixth time in the 19-year history of the award that a white performer had won it. Macklemore also beats Lamar for Best New Artist, and sends Lamar an apologetic text.
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2015
This time, it’s Beck’s turn to beat Beyonce in the Album of the Year category, with his “Morning Phase” scoring a surprise victory over her self-titled album.
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2016
Grammy voters’ love for Taylor Swift proves embarrassing once more, as her “1989” album beats Kendrick Lamar’s landmark “To Pimp a Butterfly.” Her floppy-haired bestie Ed Sheeran, meanwhile, beats Kendrick in the Song of the Year category.
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2017
And finally, Adele wins Album of the Year for “25,” and immediately uses her speech to say what everybody was thinking: that Beyonce deserved it for “Lemonade,” which she said was “so monumental, and so well thought-out and soul-bearing.”
Kevin Winter/Getty Images
2018
Jay-Z was the most nominated artist, with eight, but didn't win a single Grammy. On his joint album with Beyonce, "Everything Is Love," the song "APESH-T" included the lyric: "Tell the Grammys f--- that zero for eight s---." And while Kendrick Lamar swept the hip-hop awards for "DAMN." he lost Record and Album of the Year to Bruno Mars.
2019
Kendrick Lamar, Drake and Childish Gambino all declined invitations to perform on the show, according to producer Ken Ehrlich. And then Kendrick Lamar's "Black Panther" soundtrack lost in the Album of the Year category to Kacey Musgraves' "Golden Hour" (one of the two non-hip-hop albums among the eight nominees).
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This year’s diverse nominations are a far cry from the Recording Academy’s history of missing the best in soul, R&B and hip-hop
The 2018 Grammy nominations were a triumph for diversity, with far more hip-hop and R&B nominees in the top categories than ever before.
In a way, it shouldn't come as a surprise that an organization devoted to supporting and honoring music would recognize the current ascendance of hip-hop as the dominant popular music form. But it is something of a delicious shock, because since they began in the 1950s, the Grammys have not exactly been inclusive.
No hip-hop song, for instance, has ever won Record of the Year or Song of the Year. You could argue that they’ve been shortsighted when it comes to rock music and Latin music and jazz and other genres, too, that there’s an inevitable conservatism that comes from having a huge body of voters considering such a vast musical landscape.
But the decades worth of snubs and oversights are not pretty. Scroll through TheWrap's timeline:
William P. Gottlieb/Creative Commons
