Otis R&B Catalog Gets Famous Treatment

03/27/2004 7:59 PM, Reuters
Jim Bessman

Famous Music Publishing has picked up exclusive worldwide rights for most of the classic pop and R&B songs written by Clyde Otis and Brook Benton.

The Clyde Otis Music Group (TCOMG)'s newly minted, long-term pact with the worldwide music publishing division of Viacom's Paramount Pictures is the first of its kind for TCOMG.

It was struck by the children of Clyde Otis: TCOMG president Isidro Otis, VP of business affairs Clyde Otis III and VP of film and television Ana Iza Otis. The trio has been running the company since the semi-retirement of its founder and chairman, Clyde Otis, 79, who remains active in Nashville.

After scoring his first hit composition in 1954 with Nat "King" Cole & the Four Knights' "That's All There Is to That," New York cabbie Otis traded the steering wheel for the studio knob.

He joined Mercury's A&R department and began writing and producing material for his signee Benton, including the 1959 No. 3 hit "It's Just a Matter of Time" -- the first of 17 straight hits for the creative duo.

Otis produced Dinah Washington 's classic "What a Difference a Day Makes" and Sarah Vaughan 's "Broken-Hearted Melody." He wrote and produced for the likes of Aretha Franklin , Bobby "Blue" Bland, Timi Yuro and Johnny Mathis .

Otis produced 33 of Mercury's 51 hit singles in 1962. Moving to Nashville, he wrote and produced for country artists including Charlie Rich , Glen Campbell , Barbara Mandrell , Sonny James and Don Williams via his Eden Music Corp. country music pubbery.

Among Otis' many achievements, he was the first African-American publisher to receive a No. 1 BMI country music award (Randy Travis took "It's Just a Matter of Time" to the top of the country chart in 1989) and has served as a member of the board of directors of the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

He founded TCOMG in 1956, and it remains a family-owned and -operated publishing company that contains copyrights spanning more than five decades of music in pop, rock, R&B, country and jazz.

In addition to Otis and Benton, among the many top songwriters included in the catalog are Larry Harrison, Danny Small, Joe Seneca and Rose Marie McCoy.

Reuters/Billboard