Disco Artist Sampled In Daft Punk’s “One More Time” Says He Hasn’t Received A Dime
Eddie Johns, the disco artist behind the song “More Spell on You” that’s sampled on Daft Punk’s “One More Time,” said he hasn’t received any royalties from the pop hit.
Daft Punk‘s “One More Time” is one of the duo’s most beloved and successful hit songs. Released in 2000, the track continues to be timeless decades later and is a testament to their legacy as influential electronic dance music figures amid their breaking up earlier this year.
But a part of what makes “One More Time” what it is, is a sample of Eddie Johns’ “More Spell on You.” Well, in a recent report from the Los Angeles Times, the disco artist shared that he hasn’t seen a dime from royalties for being sampled on the song. Johns made “More Spell on You” back in 1979 but his career never took off. Fast forward to 2000, and the song resurfaced as a sample on “One More Time.” Unfortunately, Johns wasn’t credited on Discovery, the album that the hit single appeared on.
The 70-year-old Liberian-born Johns has suffered from homelessness in Los Angeles for over a decade, and “had a stroke 10 years ago that left him unable to work and forced him onto the streets or into shelters,” according to the Times. Johns said he hopes to get some credit from the song and, amid the Times‘ report, it looks like that might now be a possibility.
A representative for Daft Punk told the Times that the group has paid royalties for Johns’ “More Spell on You” “twice a year to the producer and owner” of the song for years, adding that “Per the agreement it is the duty of the producer of ‘More Spell on You’ to pay (part of such) semiannual payments to Eddie Johns.”
The rights to the song belong to French label and publishing company GM Musipro, which is led by founder Georges Mary.
“We have not heard from [Johns] since the day we acquired in 1995 a catalog from another label that featured this title,” Mary said in an email to the Times. “We have tried to do research on him, but without any result. For our part, we are going to study his file and do the accounts to his credit. We will get back to him immediately on this subject, at the same time as we will inform him of his rights.”
It’s unknown just how much Johns will get once he’s made a part of who gets royalties from “One More Time,” but there;s no denying that he should be credited.
“What part of that Eddie shares in, we don’t know yet,” Erin Jacobson, an attorney knowledgable in music industry intellectual property, told the Times. “But it does seem that Eddie should have some credit on the composition and the master side, which didn’t get handled. Now it’s up to all the parties to remedy that.”