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- ASCAP, which had been the home of the Great American Songbook — George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers — almost missed rock 'n' roll entirely. Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly and The Beatles all signed with BMI, which stands for Broadcast Music Incorporated. Pollock says it took ASCAP a long time to catch up.
"It really took them until the mid-'60s before they began to realize that, as they say, 'rock 'n' roll is here to stay,'" he says.
ASCAP now represents close to 500,000 members in all musical genres. As a working composer, I'm one of them, and even see a little bit of the nearly $1 billion a year in royalties ASCAP collects.