Carly Simon Sues Starbucks Over Failure of "This Kind of Love" LP

Carly Simon has hired legal heavyweight David Boies and is suing coffee giant Starbucks, who released the singer's 2007 album This Kind of Love on their Hear Music label, for failing to properly promote the LP as promised, the New York Times reports. In the lawsuit, Simon blames Starbucks' mismanagement for the record's weak sales (which total 124,000 copies), claiming the company reneged on promises to prominently feature the record in stores and stock it in the thousands of Starbucks across the country.

Five days before This Kind of Love was released on April 29th, 2008, Starbucks announced that they were "refining their entertainment strategy" and placed Hear Music, which counts Paul McCartney's Memory Almost Full amongst its most successful releases, under the control of Concord Music Group, Rolling Stone reported last year. Simon believes that move resulted in the lack of promotion for This Kind of Love, an album that Simon had hoped would be successful enough that she could stop recording, the singer told NYT. However, due to the LP's failure, Simon has been forced to continue her career, and now she's struggling to find and pay producers in addition to other financial woes stemming from losses in the stock market and real estate troubles.

Additionally, according to Simon, Starbucks initially promised an advance of $750,000 to $1 million for the album, but after the contract was drawn up that figure was scaled back to $575,000. Simon says she fronted $100,000 to record This Kind, and alleges that she didn't even receive the entirety of that advance. According to the NYT, Simon is seeking between $5 and $10 million for Starbucks' "concealment of material facts," "tortious interference" and "unlawful, unfair and fraudulent business practices."

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Song Stories

“All Along the Watchtower”

The Jimi Hendrix Experience | 1968

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."

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