David Oliver was Amazing, the Jerk

Running through YouTube looking for my fav Otis Redding's "These Arms of Mine," somebody suggested David Oliver. I clicked on him. His voice soared --all four octaves. Oh yes, he could sing. In 1977, I wrote an entire album that ended up entitled "Jamerican Man" with my themesong "MS." There is a line in the song "She's climbing high mountains just standing on her own two feet." That's me, then and now. I was careful and I did all the paperwork right. My name is on every form and on the record and the joke is that the album did pretty well, MS went pretty high on the charts and I never made a dime from the sales. Mercury even released it again on some package and they wouldn't pay me for that either since I waited too long. Oh, even all these years later, I still get writers royalties from BMI for "Friends and Strangers," because Ronnie Laws recorded it the year after David. But nothing from any Ronnie Laws sales, either and nothing from the lying, cheating others. When I realized that I was going to be screwed so hard by David, Forest Hamilton, Mutt Cohen and Wayne Henderson, I knew I had a choice--I could take a gun and blow them all to hell or just stop writing songs. I stopped writing songs and started writing other things. David had the most amazing voice, but no honor and he died badly when he was 40. Forest died too. The other two are still around, but I am a very patient woman. C'mon did you ever know a Scorpio to forgive or forget? I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson.