When Shane bought the rights to the Kingston Trio name from Reynolds and Werber in 1972(?) he forfeited his future royalties on all the Capitol catalog, as well as (I believe) Decca and Tetragrammaton. At some point after that he instigated the percentage pay scale for his two front-line guys. I'm quite sure that when Nick returned to the group he was paid on the same percentage basis that George and I were getting. Bob and his accountant had arrived at a formula that took into account off-the-top expenses (travel, agent & management fees, side-man salaries, etc.) while leaving the percentage allowance for two guys and, I assume, a nice paycheck for deBobwan. Nick mainly wanted to play and, as you say, he was not hurting for money, so I'm quite sure that he accepted Bob's pay structure as an independent contractor. Remember also that he and Werber were then splitting all those record royalties from the '60's, altho that was probably not a huge sum by the 1990's.
Responses