Paul McCartney acquires Buddy Holly’s song catalog

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I owe it all to Linda’s dad, Lee Eastman and her brother, John. Linda’s dad is a great business brain. He said originally, ‘If you are going to invest, do it in something you know. If you invest in building companies or something, you can lose a fortune. Wouldn’t you rather be in music? Stay in music.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’d much rather do that.’ So he asked me what kind of music I liked and the first name I said was Buddy Holly. Lee got on to the man who owned Buddy Holly’s stuff and bought that for me because the Buddy Holly stuff was up for sale. Norman Petty just happened to be selling it. EMI was interested in it, Chappels was interested in it, Allen Klein was interested in it and I think, secretly, that’s what got me interested. I had always said I liked Buddy, he was one of my big influences when I first started writing. When it came up for sale, I had to spend my money somehow and I thought, ‘Well, I’d rather have that than anything else.’ Not so much to be greedy, but to just, kind of, be able to look after those songs and do stuff for them, because it’s stuff that I’m really interested in. I like the publishing thing because it’s clean. It just takes care of itself. So I was into publishing now. The strange thing is that we, The Beatles, never owned our own publishing. It was always getting bought and sold. Someone else owns ‘Yesterday’ not me. So it was a kind of compensation, really, for that.

Paul McCartney – From “The Beatles: Off The Record 2 – The Dream is Over: Dream Is Over Vol 2” by Keith Badman

McCartney Music Acquires Catalog Of Nor Va Jak

NEW YORK – McCartney Music, Inc. has acquired one of the top rock ‘n’ roll catalogs from Norman Petty’s company, Nor Va Jak Music, Inc., of Clovis; New Mexico. The catalog contains many of the hits by Buddy Holly. Some of the songs are “Peggy Sue,” “That’ll Be The Day,” “True Love Ways,” “Not Fade Away,” and “I’m Going To Love You Too.”

McCartney credits Holly with being one of his strong influences.

Paul and Linda McCartney are expanding their music operation now that the contract between Paul McCartney and Northern Songs expired, effective Feb. 10. As part of the extension, they have retained Norman Petty, President of Nor Va Jak Music, Inc. to exploit the material acquired by McCartney Music, Inc. and to coordinate and assist in planning new worldwide projects.

Eastman & Eastman acted on behalf of the buyer and Peter Thall of the Robert Casper Law Offices represented Nor Va Jak Music, Inc. and Norman Petty. No purchase price was revealed.

From Cashbox Magazine, February 17, 1973

Last updated on April 28, 2022