Isaias Gamboa (music producer)

Isaias Gamboa
Born	(1963-04-21) April 21, 1963

Isaias Gamboa (born April 21, 1963) is an Afro-Costa Rican-American educator, music producer, songwriter, musician, arranger, author, and filmmaker.

Early Life and Career

Born in San Jose, Costa Rica to parents of Spanish and Afro-Caribbean ancestry, his mother was from the Caribbean coastal city of Puerto Limon, Costa Rica, and his father, from the interior province of San Ramón, Costa Rica.

Isaias Gamboa grew up during the 1960s and 70s in the primarily African American community of West Adams, Los Angeles. During the 1940s and 50s, this community was home to many Black celebrities and musical luminaries such as Hattie McDaniel, Joe Louis, Little Richard, Lionel Hampton and Ray Charles. During the '60s and '70s, Los Angeles was a rich source of Gospel, Soul, and Jazz music and musicians. Isaias's interest in music began early and was nurtured by his mother, who introduced him to Christian hymns and piano at age 5. In the early '70s, he learned to play guitar from noted guitarist Edgar Rice of the Nelson Alexander Trio, who taught him Honkey tonk guitar and a particular style of West Coast blues called Jump blues. At 13, Gamboa had his first public performance accompanying Los Angeles-based jazz and Blues singer Ernie Andrews at an outdoor event in Los Angeles.

In 1980, at age 17, Isaias was introduced by pop singer Foster Sylvers to his older brother, R&B music producer Leon Sylvers III, who signed him to his music production and music publishing companies. While still in his teens, Gamboa was signed by music industry executive Clive Davis as a member of the 1980s R&B band Real To Reel (Arista Records). Five-time Grammy Award-winning music producers, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis produced their first professional recordings; "Can You Treat Me Like She Does," and "Don't Keep Me Hangin' On" for Real To Reel.

Gamboa was the founding member of the 1990s neoclassical R&B/Hip Hop group, "Double Action Theatre" (Polydor Records, which he also produced.). The group disbanded shortly following the release of their self-titled debut album.

In the 1990s, Gamboa was discovered by music producer Richard Perry, with whom he worked closely on For Lovers Only. Gamboa was asked to take complete creative control of the project midway through production and went on to produce two subsequent two Temptations albums, Phoenix Rising and Ear-Resistible. In June 2010, Gamboa released a solo CD entitled "Don't Lie To Me" featuring his vocal and instrumental performances. The 12-song collection was written, produced, performed, and arranged by himself. The CD includes performances by guitarist, Larry Carlton, The Temptations; drummer, Trevor Lawrence Jr.; singer, Vida Jafari and saxophonist, Donald Hayes.

Gamboa has written, performed, produced, and or arranged more than 200 songs for recording artists including Shalamar, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Tavares, The Brothers Johnson, Dynasty, The Pointer Sisters, and five albums for Rock and Roll Hall of Fame recording artists The Temptations. Three of these include, For Lovers Only, Phoenix Rising, which received a Platinum certification, and the Grammy Award winning CD Ear-Resistible, which won the 2001 Grammy Award for Best Traditional R&B Performance. In 1994. Gamboa produced the remix of "Pain" aka, "So Much Pain" by the late, Tupac Shakur for the Multi-Platinum, Above the Rim

"We Shall Overcome" Book, Audiobook and Documentary Film

Published in 2012, We Shall Overcome: Sacred Song On The Devil's Tongue tells the previously undocumented history of the protest anthem, We Shall Overcome. The book also includes biographical information on Louise Shropshire (1913-1993). According to evidence revealed in Gamboa's book, Shropshire - a hymn writer, civil rights activist and close friend of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr., Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and Rev. Thomas A. Dorsey, is most likely to have played an important role in the creation of the iconic freedom anthem, "We Shall Overcome." The song, popularized by Pete Seeger and others, has been credited to "Unknown" for over half a century. Newly-discovered evidence presented in Gamboa's book traces Shropshire's uncredited involvement with the freedom anthem to her hymn, "If My Jesus Wills," more commonly known as "I'll Overcome" from which prima facie and other evidence indicates "We Shall Overcome" was derived.

Lyrics to "If My Jesus Wills":

"I'll Overcome, I'll Overcome, I'll Overcome Someday,

Oh yes, If My Jesus Wills, I Do Believe, I'll Overcome Someday"

Shropshire's hymn was composed between 1932 and 1942 and copyrighted in 1954. Gamboa's book was featured at the Author's Pavilion at the 2015 NAACP National Convention.

Audiobook

An abridged, dramatized audiobook version of the book, also named, We Shall Overcome: Sacred Song On The Devil's Tongue was released in 2011. Narrated and produced by Isaias Gamboa on his Plum Recordings music label, the dramatized four-CD collection also features slave narratives and negro spirituals.

Through the efforts of Dr. P. Eric Abercrumbie, the then-Director of Ethnic Programs and Services and the African American Culture and Resource Center at the University of Cincinnati, Louise Shropshire's collection of documents, personal papers and artifacts was acquired in 2014 by the University of Cincinnati and are preserved in the Rare Books Archives.

According to the University of Cincinnati, The Louise Shropshire Family Papers collection includes photographs, family memorabilia, letters, sheet music, and other documents. The collection is held in UC's Archives and Rare Books Library, located on the eighth floor of Blegen Library.

Documentary Film

In September 2010, Gamboa began producing and directing a documentary film, Claim the Sky: We Shall Overcome." The film tracks his 10-year quest to learn the true origins of We Shall Overcome. The film was initially scheduled to be completed by the fall of 2015 until The Richmond Organization, the music publishing company claiming control of the song, denied Gamboa the use of the song in his film.

The "U.S. African American Restoration Act"

(Legislative Initiative)

In 2017, Gamboa published the book, "Enter The Promised Land: The U.S. African American Restoration Act." Gamboa's book proposes that education is the only way for American Blacks to truly overcome 400 years of murder, rape, racism, exploitation, abuse, neglect, oppression, and mistreatment. Gamboa writes: "As a meaningful and long-overdue gesture of atonement and contrition for what the New York Times has called "America's Original Sin--slavery, that the United States Congress sponsor and pass legislation that will entitle African Americans—regardless of economic status or criminal background--full postsecondary and or vocational scholarship vouchers for tuition, books, materials, housing, and meals. As opposed to reparations for slavery, Gamboa's initiative calls for "Restoration" and proposes that no direct cash disbursements be made to any USAARA recipient.

The "We Shall Overcome" Lawsuit, and Book, Featuring Summary of Court Evidence

On April 12, 2016, after being denied the use of "We Shall Overcome" in his documentary film by the The Richmond Organization; the We Shall Overcome Foundation (WSOF), a non-profit organization founded by Gamboa in 2011, filed a class-action lawsuit seeking clarification of the copyright status of "We Shall Overcome". Since 1960, The Richmond Organization and Ludlow Music (TRO-Ludlow) have asserted legal ownership of the song based on US copyrights registered in 1960 and 1963. The suit alleged that, at best, only specific arrangements of We Shall Overcome were valid and that a version published in 1948 under the title "We Will Overcome" had expired due to lack of renewal. In September 2017, a judge issued an opinion that there were insignificant differences between the first verses of the 1948 and registered versions for copyright to exist in it.

On January 26, 2018, Judge Denise Cote of the Southern District of New York filed an order in which Ludlow Music and The Richmond Organization—the defendants in the lawsuit—agreed to a settlement stipulating: "Defendants agree that hereafter they will not claim copyright in the melody or lyrics of any verse of the song We Shall Overcome ("the Song"), included in the registration Nos. EU645288 (1960) and EP 179877 (1963). Defendants agree that the melody and lyrics of those verses of the Song are hereafter dedicated to the public domain".

In September 2018, in her final “opinion and order” regarding this case, SDNY District Court Judge Denise Cote wrote the following five statements:

1. “As part of the settlement, defendants agreed to stop claiming a copyright in the melody or lyrics of any verse of the song We Shall Overcome included in their two copyright registrations…”

2. “As for that prong of the motion that sought to dismiss the the claim of fraud on the copyright office, the complaint plausibly alleged that the copyrights had been obtained through fraud…”

3. “On summary judgment, this Court found that there were material factual disputes as to the authorship, divestment, and fraud on the copyright claims…”

4. “The defendants were even at significant risk of a finding that they had engaged in fraud on the Copyright Office. The applications for registration of the copyrights had omitted material disclosures of prior works and authors…”

5. “It also bears noting that the second motion came on the eve of a a trial that the parties had already invested substantial effort preparing for. That motion is best understood as reflecting the defendants’ lack of confidence in their ability to defend against either the authorship or fraud challenges to their copyrights at trial.”

Case 1:16-cv-02725-DLC Document 164 Filed 07/31/18

The documents obtained by Gamboa's as a result of his research, and submitted as evidence to the court, affirmed that Pete Seeger, Guy Carawan, Frank Hamilton, and Myles Horton (widower of Zilphia Horton) knowingly committed fraud on the copyright office by signing their names to a notarized Songwriter’s Agreement for We Shall Overcome in which they falsely stated they were the: “sole writer/s composer/s, and owner/s of said composition, and any and all rights therein; and that said composition has never been published, copyrighted or registered in any part of the world…”

The 1963 Songwriter's Agreement for We Shall Overcome was used by Pete Seeger's music publisher, The Richmond Organization/Ludlow Music, to file the 1963 copyright for We Shall Overcome. It was also proven through their recorded and written statements, also entered as evidence in the case, that none of these purported writers contributed any original melody or lyrics to We Shall Overcome.

In August 2023, Isaias Gamboa published So Help Me, God: Pete Seeger Stole "We Shall Overcome". The book presents a summary and copies of the physical evidence presented to the court in the "We Shall Overcome Lawsuit." The four-part documentary film, Claim the Sky - We Shall Overcome, produced, directed, and edited by Isaias Gamboa, was completed in 2023.

Gamboa is a licensed Christian minister. While his mother was a Baptist and his father a Catholic, he also identifies with his Jewish ancestry through his Jamaican maternal grandmother, Louise Teitelbaum. He describes himself as a follower of the teachings of Jesus Christ. Additional details on his spiritual background are contained in Gamboa's 2012 book, We Shall Overcome: Sacred Song On The Devil's Tongue.