"Hold On To My Love" Jimmy Ruffin

I think the rights to "Hold On to My Love" are owned by whomever administers the estate of Robin Gibb. The album and follow-up 45 both have the credit "℗ 1980 YAM INC.", which was a company set up by Robin Gibb in 1977 and dissolved in 1986.

MMathews wrote: In the 80's and early 90's the owner was presumed to be Polygram because the RSO catalog went to Polygram. (and later Universal). This is how it ended up on a few V/A comps back then. But it was discovered by Polygram they didn't actually have the rights. We tried to license the song in 2016 and we did track down the current owner. It is in fact "the estate of Robin Gibb". TimNeely is correct. We put in a request for license to the Gibb organization and were declined. This could be for any number of reasons. Often, it boils down to the amount of money they'd get isn't enough to cover the legal costs of setting up the license. There could have been other legal factors as well. Either way, sadly it's unlikely this track will ever be licensed for CD again. MM

It's a sad shame that any top 10 hit from that period can't make a various artist compilation in the U.S. and that the entire album never made it to CD here either...

Mark, are you saying that the extended version of Hold On to My Love on all CDs comes from vinyl?? That would really be bad if that's the case. And if so, have you tried to re-create the extended version by using as much as you can from the CD source? kinda like what I did to create the extended version of Kinks' "Come Dancing" - although after reading what I've learned tonight, I just ordered a CD that has the extended version of "Come Dancing" (hopefully taken from tape). Granted, recreating the Jimmy Ruffin extended version would require more work than that of the Kinks one, but I'm curious if you've tried that.

Well, Mark ... I guess you're not the only person looking forward to YOUR retirement! :)

When I worked on Rhino's "Radio Daze - Pop Hits of the '80s" series, this song was one I was REALLY hoping to get, but the licensing department at Rhino got a "No". I wasn't given any reason at the time, but I believe it has to do with a question of just who owns the master - The Bee Gees, Robert Stigwood, etc. The full length single did come out on one UK CD comp. (And the dj promo [shorter] version came out on a US CD.) Both from master tape. But yeah, that song isn't something that can be found for purchase on Amazon as an mp3, or lossless on sites like Qobuz. The parent album has never been released on official CD from master tape anywhere in the world - at least as far as I can tell.

I can't really speak for his '60s stuff, which I think has been out on CD, i.e. some Jimmy Ruffin compilations.