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More anthem money for orchestra
submitted by: Lisa D.
source: St. Petersburg Times
Date: February 8, 2002
BY JOHN FLEMING
Whitney Houston has come to the aid of the Florida Orchestra again.
The orchestra expects to receive more than $ 100,000 in royalties from Arista Records' rerelease of Houston's rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner.
"It's come in bits and pieces," said Leonard Stone, the orchestra's executive director. "The likelihood is that this will shake out at the end of the day somewhere between $ 100,000 to $ 120,000 of funding that will have come to the orchestra." It's the second six-figure windfall from Houston. In 1991, the orchestra accompanied her lip-synched performance at the Super Bowl, and the recording was a hit during the Gulf War. The orchestra received royalty payments of about $ 100,000 from sales then. It had not gotten a statement from Arista since 1992.
In December, the orchestra sued Arista, asking for enforcement of a contract requiring it to pay royalties on all sales worldwide. The orchestra withdrew the suit when Arista agreed to resolve the matter.
The recording was reissued after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. It had previously been rereleased in 2000 on Houston's two-CD Arista album The Greatest Hits. Sales topped 10-million copies. A DVD/video with the same title sold in excess of 100,000.
However, not every double album contained the Star-Spangled Banner.
"They removed the national anthem from worldwide distribution outside the United States, thinking that somebody in the Congo or Kazakhstan couldn't care whether that was in there or not," Stone said. "It's been a matter of finding out how many of those albums were sold internationally, how many domestically."
Sales of the single have tapered off, Stone said.
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