U.S Concert Promoter Bill Reid Sues The Wailers

by reggaewire | October 31, 2008 at 01:52 pm

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Concert promoter Bill Reid says everything's not gonna be all right unless he gets $2 million owed him by the reggae group The Wailers, according to a federal lawsuit filed Friday in federal court.

Reid claims The Wailers and their agents owe him for eight years of promotion in which he was contracted to receive 10 percent of the band's concert revenues.

The lawsuit says The Wailers' agents, Aston "Family Man" Barrett and Jennifer Miller, lived lavishly while at the same time pleading poverty to Reid. Barrett was an original Wailer when Bob Marley formed the band in the 1970s. Marley died of cancer in 1981. He was 36.

Marley produced some of the most popular reggae tunes ever recorded, including "No Woman No Cry" with the repetitive line "Everything's gonna be all right," "One Love" and "I Shot The Sheriff."

The Wailers continued touring after Marley's death and have remained a popular concert draw, earning revenues of about $1 million a year in ticket sales in the years Reid promoted the band, according to the suit.

The Wailers would play The NorVa, which Reid owns, several times a year but the band has not been there for about two years since this dispute began, Reid's attorney said.

Reid now represents The Original Wailers, an offshoot started by two former Wailers' guitarists. That band played The NorVa earlier this month. Reached at his Rising Tide Productions office at The NorVa on Monday, Reid declined to comment.

"It's unfortunate," said his attorney, Jeff Breit. "It's an unfortunate turn of events for people who used to get along really, really well."

From 1998 to 2006 Reid acted as The Wailers' promoter. He says in the suit that the band tripled its performance fees under his direction. He booked them as the opening act for Santana, the Allman Brothers Band, Sting and other mega stars.

But Reid says he never got his 10 percent, while during that period the band raked in $8 million. That should have earned Reid $800,000, the suit says. Reid says he's also owed another $1.2 million in band expenses and loans. He says he had fronted the band money for salaries, hotel rooms, airfare and band equipment.

"On several occasions," the suit says, "The Wailers were in desperate need of money to reinvest in its band and its several business initiatives."

In the meantime, Barrett and Miller used Wailers' profits to take vacations, buy jewelry and expensive homes and send their children to private schools, the suit says.

"Miller and Barrett continue to live extravagantly off of the funds which were supposed to be used to pay for band expenses, taxes owed to the state and federal government, and salaries of band members," the suit states.

In one instance, several band members were stranded in Europe with no plane ticket home because of a lack of money, the suit says.

The suit says Miller and Barrett live together in Centreville, on Maryland's Eastern Shore, run a business called Bamboula 8 and are parents of seven children, according to court filings. The only public phone number for them has been disconnected.

Richard Ottinger, a Norfolk attorney representing The Wailers and Barrett and Miller in the lawsuit, declined to comment on specifics of the case. "The comment for now is only that all the allegations are denied by the defendants," he said.

Ottinger filed papers in federal court seeking to have the case dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, or in the alternative have it transferred to Maryland. The defendants have not yet filed a specific answer to Reid's complaint.