8 Days Of 80’s ~ Day 5 ~ Ray Parker Jr ~ Ghostbusters

8 Days Of 80’s ~ Day 5 ~ Ray Parker Jr ~ Ghostbusters

Yesterday I talked about the Chrysalis side of Tandem so today it’s Arista. Artists on the lable during my time included The Thompson Twins, The Lotus Eaters, Nick Hayward, Whitney Houston, Jermaine Jackson, Meatloaf (who once rode his motorcycle through a false wall into a sales conference) and Ray Parker Jr.

During my time working for the three record companies each one was linked to a film. While I was at A&M they had, what turned out to be a cult-favourite, the British comedy Party Party CLICK HERE. Chrysalis had Huey Lewis and the News had The Power Of Love CLICK HERE on the first Back To The Future soundtrack and Arista had Ray Parker Jr and Ghostbusters. This meant lots of trips to preview showings in Soho, promotional items and tickets to take people to see the films – it was a tough life!

Because the new version has just been released it seemed right to select Ghostbusters to represent my time at Arista.

Ray Parker Jr ~ Ghostbusters

The Ghostbusters single made number two over here (for three weeks) but was a number one in the USA and plenty of other places – I guess we were a rubbish promotions team! My car was full of singles, soundtrack albums, t-shirts and stickers!

Now, here’s the really freaky thing, when Ghostbusters was released, Huey Lewis sued Ray Parker Jr. for plagiarism, claiming the melody came from “I Want a New Drug”. The two parties settled out of court. It was all a bit weird working for both companies at the time.

That’s Day 5 of my 8 Days Of 80’s, tomorrow I’ll be looking at what happened when I left working for record companies to set up my own shop in partnership with my friend Michael.