Do session musicians get paid royalties?
Imagine having a number one hit, but nobody knows about it. There’s something that seems quite at odds within itself about the statement, isn’t there? But this is the exact plight of session musicians, the unacknowledged backbone of the industry who, often quite literally, are the unsung maestros pulling the strings behind some of our favourite tunes by artists everywhere, from Bob Dylan to The Beatles.
In many respects, the session musician lives life on the tip of a double-edged sword – getting to pour their talents into seismic songs but the vast majority of the time not getting any of the acclaim, nor money, from it that they should. The rights of these artists are a hotly debated topic within the industry, rising in tandem with the ongoing onslaught for streaming services to give musicians more of their hard-earned cash than the shoestring cut they are currently handed, meaning, all in all, there are the makings of a financial firestorm.
Just think of how many iconic musical moments have been borne out of the fruits of a session musician’s labour – the bassist Carol Kaye, who worked with Frank Sinatra to Frank Zappa and everyone in between; Steve Gregory, the saxophonist who breathed life and soul into George Michael’s ‘Careless Whisper’; right up to the present day with singer Raye, who in 2023 became the first ever independent artist to top the charts with her album My 21st Century Blues, after breaking from her label who refused to release her from the shackles of the guest slot.
But what all these stellar session musicians have in common is that they do not get their rightful dues when it comes to the tunes they have Midas touched. To this day, according to the Musicians’ Union, session guests will not typically receive royalties via sales or streaming unless it has been previously stipulated in their recording agreement. Instead, all of the cash gets scooped up by the recording rightsholder – in other words, the label or independent artist themselves.
Did session musicians get paid royalties in the past?
It may seem like an injustice, but this is far from a recent industry outrage. In fact, this disservice to session musicians travels as far back as the aforementioned Kaye, who famously formed part of the session conglomerate The Wrecking Crew, a collective of Los Angeles musicians who were the force of session recording in the 1960s and 1970s between them spawning hundreds of top 40 records.
For a group that provided such a cultural reckoning to the industry, it’s quite inconceivable to think that most of them – bar a small minority like Glen Campbell and Leon Russell – never broke out of obscurity. Their lack of musical remuneration goes a long way in explaining this squalid state of affairs, subsequently marking the treatment of session musicians as one of the industry’s dirtiest stains.
Of course, if you have the talent but not the confidence for the limelight, session musicianship could be the route to go down. But without also possessing a huge element of financial savviness, it’s bound to be a tough road. Being a session musician is not for the weak – though the weight of changing that now lies squarely on the industry’s shoulders.
