The estate of a Mississippi blues musician has filed a lawsuit against Eric Clapton, accusing the noted British guitarist of giving a songwriting credit to the wrong artist.
A lawsuit filed in Nashville federal court reportedly says Clapton attributed the song Alberta to Huddie Ledbetter - better known as Lead Belly - on the 2013 re-release of Clapton's Unplugged album, when the credit should have gone to Bo Carter.
Miles Floyd, Carter's step-grandson, says Clapton's song was a cover of Carter's Corrine, Corrina, which was first licensed in 1929 and over time became interchangeable with Alberta.
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The lawsuit seeks 5 million dollars (£4.1 million) and includes Clapton and Warner Music Group as defendants. The defendants have not responded to the lawsuit.
Carter died in Memphis in 1964.
Mr Floyd's lawyer Barry Shrum said: "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."
Carter, whose real name was Armenter Chatmon, sometimes performed with his brothers as the Mississippi Sheiks, considered one of the most prominent African-American string bands of the 1930s.
The Sheiks covered the song using Alberta, Alberta instead of Corrine, Corrina, and called it Alberta Blues, according to the lawsuit.
Versions of the song have been sung by Dean Martin, Jerry Lee Lewis, Willie Nelson and others.
Performing as Lead Belly, Ledbetter recorded a song called Alberta in 1940, but that song was not musically similar to the original Corrine, Corrina, the lawsuit said.
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