Eric Clapton Sued by Bo Carter Estate Over Improper Credit on 1992 Unplugged Album

Eric Clapton, an American rock and blues guitarist and singer-song writer has been sued for a mistaken credit on the song “Alberta” on the album Unplugged.

The credit, for a long time, has been given to Huddie Ledbetter for his song “Lead Belly” but it has been claimed that the tunes were from Bo Carter’s song “Corrine, Corrina”. Along with the similar tunes, the topic of the lyrics are added onto this improper credit. According to Rolling Stone, the lawsuit was filed by Bo Carter’s step-grandson, Miles Floyd and ” seeks $5 million from Clapton, Warner Music Group, Rhino Music and Unplugged broadcasters MTV and Viacom over the mistaken credit.”Miles Floyd had said that he is suing for the tunes and similar lyrics with only the name “Corrina” being replaced by the name “Alberta”

Bo Carter first got the song licensed through the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers or the ASCAP in 1929. As for the copyright, both Bo Carter and his producer, J. Mayo Williams went to register through U.S. Copyright Office in December 1929.

Miles Floyd’s laywer has said that “This is a situation where you have the estate, the rightful owners of Bo’s intellectual property, just trying to get what’s rightfully theirs and get credit where credit is due. Bo created this song and started, in essence, a genre in music and influenced many performers in the future, and he deserves that credit.”

But according to Billboard, the law suit has said “Each of the Defendants has failed to account to Plaintiff for their unauthorized use of the Original Song, including without limitation sales of phonograph recordings/DVDs of the Original Song as part of the Deluxe Clapton Unplugged video/recording and the Songbooks, and Defendants have failed to pay any royalties to Plaintiff for such unauthorized sales or other uses of the Original Song.”

A year back, the artist featured in  the documentary tributed to Stevie Ray Vaughan. In this documentary, he along with other artists spoke out about Stevie Ray Vaughan, this documentary is available to stream on Qello.