Richie Sambora

Let me ask you all an honest question. For example, imagine you are Jon and you are working on Blaze of Glory record and song. And for this song, you have most of the lyrics panned out and chord structure and melody finished. But you feel you lack something, not just obviously lacking in lead guitar and needing band members to record rest of the instruments.

Now, you don't go to your drummer and give him exact spreadsheet where to hit what and how. You paid him for a job, to both arrange his takes, those takes get approved by you when you're satisfied, and then to record those takes. It's the same for keyboard player, lead guitar player, bassist, possibly string arranger and let's say backing vocal harmonies.

So you pay Jeff Beck a hefty sum, let's say half a million dollars
to make arrangement for intro, lead guitar work in general, and solo.
But in the process, he really delivers epic stuff, and this elevates song from very promising to global hard rock hit. Do you put him also on songwriting credits, even though he basically only did the job you paid him?

(P.S. Obviously, with band dynamics is a bit different and more particular, but I made on purpose this example with complete hired guns)

If I gave Jeff Beck the song and he recorded it as it was written on my original demo then no he does not get a song writing credit. If he comes in and puts an awesome solo on it, it wouldn't give him a writing credit. That is what I paid him to do.

But if he came up with an awesome riff and it became a huge part of the song, including the intro and several times within the song, then yes I would be more than happy to give him a songwriting credit. Remember you can give a certain percentage of the songwriting credits, it doesn't have to be split evenly. You could even just give 5% - but in my opinion, it deserves something. I know that's not always how it works though.

Fair, and I also think he generally deserves something.
But then I want my half a million dollars back

It's a grey zone I suppose. When we say somebody did melodies and lyrics and chord structure, more often than not it was just 4chords basic strumming with kind of finished song structure and vocal melody line. Whatever band then does is arrangement, and it's potentially magic, cause that dry acoustic strumm song goes nowhere. But the guy who brought it to garage/studio gets the fame more often than not.

There's at least one court who would agree with you.

They awarded Matthew Fisher, Procal Harem's organist, 40% of the royalties for Whiter Shade of Pale because of the distinctive organ at the beginning, leaving 30% each to the guys who actually wrote the lyrics and the music. Just sayin'...

Living Alone is a fantastic song. The intro itself transports you into a different place, which is a sign that the music is doing its job well. Vintage Richie !

So what did George Karak contribute? The lyrics?

https://people.com/richie-sambora-sa...hareurlbuttons

Dude is talking and I frigging love it.

Well that flies in the face of everything Jon is saying about "Richie doesn't want to come back" doesn't it?

Big time. I've been saying for years (and I know people are sick of it) Jon plays the media to his advantage and until someone calls him on it it's just going to keep circling and circling.

He's created this false narrative that the band isn't whole without Richie and they want to talk about him coming back and he doesn't want to. So Richie saying the polar opposite sure makes it all interesting.

And calls him out on vocal issues and doesn't think he'll ever recover from that too