Publishing Success Story: Fred Bourgoise, President of Bug Music

By Dale Kawashima

For the past twenty-five years, Fred Bourgoise, President of Bug Music, has helped build and guide this respected, publishing administration company. Starting at Bug one year after his brother, Dan Bourgoise (Chairman of Bug) founded the company in 1975, Fred Bourgoise has seen Bug evolve from a small operation with one office, to becoming a prominent, international administrator with offices in Los Angeles, Nashville, New York, London and Munich.

(Pictured l-r): Fred Bourgoise, President of Bug Music, with rock & blues great, Jimmie Vaughan.

Bug Music is best known for administering and collecting royalties on behalf of many independent publishers, songwriters, and artists. It has built a reputation as a honest, dependable company which will track down and collect royalties for its clients. For their services, Bug receives a percentage of the royalties collected.

The company now administers many, contemporary publishing catalogs, including the songs of the Dixie Chicks, Iggy Pop, Johnny Cash, Widespread Panic and Janis Ian. Bug also administers many top, blues catalogs, including the songs of the late John Lee Hooker and Willie Dixon.

Bug currently administers about 90,000 compositions worldwide. However, the company still prides itself on representing small, independent writers and publishers, who may have only a few, income-earning copyrights. For instance, there are many, smaller publishers in the U.S. which rely on Bug to collect all of their overseas income.

Bourgoise explains how Bug Music got started. "My brother Dan started the company in 1975 in Los Angeles (still the main office of Bug), and we administered the Del Shannon catalog," said Bourgoise. "There was a dispute over the copyrights of Del’s songs, but when we got the copyrights back for him, we also started to pitch his songs for cover records. We had a big breakthrough, when Bonnie Raitt recorded Del’s hit, ‘Runaway,’ and it became a cover hit. We got a taste for that cover success, and we started aggressively promoting our catalogs."

Gradually, Bug started to get referrals to administer additional catalogs. The company began administering the songs of John Hiatt, T-Bone Burnett, Asleep At The Wheel and others. Bug also became the adminstrator for many indie bands and artists.

Fred Bourgoise

"There were many bands, artists and writers who had cuts where the royalties were not being collected, and in many cases, the songs were not licensed properly in the first place," explained Bourgoise. "Also, writers would move to new addresses, and forget to notify labels where to send their money. Our job as administrators is to aggressively track the money down for our clients. We also work closely with indie labels, and we’ve helped them establish a system so they can calculate and pay royalties to their artists on a regular schedule."

In 1984, Bug decided to expand its operations, by opening its first, regional office, in Nashville. Garry Velletri was hired to run the Nashville office, and he established a major presence there for Bug. He signed the administration rights to Nanci Griffith and other writers, and placed many songs with top, country artists. In the ‘90s, Velletri moved to New York to launch a new office for Bug, and Dave Durocher became the head of Nashville operations.

Bourgoise now oversees Bug’s five offices, which now consists of about fifty employees. Yet the company still remains a family operation, with Fred & Dan Bourgoise at the helm. Also, several executives such as Velletri and Durocher have been with the company for a decade or more. The goal at Bug remains the same: track down and collect the royalties, and help pitch the songs for records and film & TV placements.

"We’ve demonstrated for many years that when publishers and writers come to Bug Music for administration, they know they’re going to get paid, and fast," said Bourgoise. "We let writers and publishers focus on their creative business, and we’re here to ensure that they get paid properly for their efforts."

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