2001 – 2011
In 2002, a story in the August issue of “LA Weekly” shed some light on the action of Atlantic to drop their rapidly rising artist with commitments and creative work underway. Poe had been signed to Atlantic in 1995 through a boutique label called Modern Records/Fishkin Entertainment Inc. (FEI). Amidst the complex and huge merger of Time Warner with AOL in 2000, it came to light that, in spite of the fact that Atlantic was responsible for providing all funding, marketing, publicity, radio promotion, tour support and distribution for the Poe project, Modern/FEI (not Atlantic) in its 1982 distribution deal with Atlantic, was awarded ownership of the masters of all Poe recordings. What this meant for Atlantic was that, by renewing Poe’s contract, Atlantic had committed sizable resources to a project in which it would never have an equity stake in Poe’s past, present or future catalogue.
In November 2000, Atlantic/AOL Time Warner chose to pay Modern/FEI an undisclosed amount of money to kill the Poe option deal, and effectively release themselves from any further fiduciary responsibilities to Modern/ FEI and/or Poe. This resulted in a pay-off for Modern/FEI and prematurely ended all printing, distribution, marketing, and promotion of Poe’s second album “Haunted.” In exchange for these monies, Modern/FEI’s agreed to give Atlantic a two-year grace period during which Modern/FEI agreed not to do anything commercially with any of Poe’s master recordings, enabling Atlantic to sell off their stock of already produced copies of “Haunted.” As a result, “Haunted” received no further promotional support and the album faded from the market place.
In 2004, Modern/ FEI sold the Poe Masters for “Hello” and “Haunted” to Sheridan Square Music who merged in 2005 with V2 Records, which cataloged the Poe masters under a sub-label called Indie Blue. Indie Blue and Sheridan Square Music were acquired by E-One Music in 2009.
Though Modern/ FEI kept ownership of Poe’s masters until 2004, in 2001 as “Haunted” was climbing the charts, the label sold its interest in Poe as an artist and in Poe’s future recordings, in a questionable deal to a wealthy oil executive and longtime Poe fan who kept Poe tied up in court, unable to release new music or perform professionally for nearly a decade. What music Poe did release during that time was generally done under the pseudonym “Jane.” The contract eventually ended after 10 years of legal wrangling, when The Labor Commission of California ruled in favor of Poe. New York Post writer, Miriam Katz, quoted Poe in her 2011 article, “A Decade of Silence,” about Poe’s ten-year legal battles, “My entire life was suddenly under the control of a very powerful man whom I didn’t know, and who didn’t mean well. It was a horror story from which I am just beginning to recover.”
Poe was able to perform for charitable events during this period, and she collaborated on film soundtracks and continued to compose and write. Also, her songs were licensed for use in films and commercials.
Read more about this topic: Poe (singer)