Who really composed the Saban score?

[Kakacarrottop]

For nearly 20 years people have been crediting Shuki Levy as the composer of the FUNimation/Saban produced Ocean dub of the first 53 DBZ episodes. This probably stems from the fact a CD was released in 1996 featuring the DBZ Saban score which had "Shuki Levy & Kussa Mahehi" as the album artists. For those of you that don't know, "Kussa Mahehi" (more commonly spelled "Kussa Mahchi") is a pseudonym used by Haim Saban, billionaire founder of Saban Entertainment. Nearly every single show Saban Entertainment was ever involved with in the slightest had those two credited as the composers (over 3000 it total). In 1998 it was revealed he hardly composed any of this music and it was all an elaborate scheme to collect music royalties.

I know Shuki Levy, unlike Haim Saban, is an actual musician, but surely he couldn't be that prolific. I've noticed he's never once talked about Dragon Ball Z and his official website (which lists all the shows he's made music for) makes no mention of DBZ. Recently Ron Wasserman came out and admitted he was more involved in the score than first thought. He was originally believed to have just composed the "Rock the Dragon" theme but now he's saying he composed the entire score. It makes sense seeing as the score sounds very similar to the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers score, which Wasserman also composed, whilst also sounding nothing at all like Inspect Gadget, Hello Kitty or Sweet Valley High (all shows Levy lists on his website). Some other Saban guy (Noam Kaniel i think) also came forward claiming he worked on the show.

I read whenever Haim Saban and Shuki Levy were falsely credited as composers the credits would list them in "Music by:" while the actual composers would be credited as the music producers


In the Rock the Dragon outro Ron Wasserman and Jeremy Sweet are credited as the music producers, so i guess that means they were probably the actual composers. Anyone else have any further information or thoughts on this?

[Lord Exor]

Dragon Ball Z's musical history: a sordid tale of plagiarists, charlatans, credit thieves, and ghost writers.

[dbgtFO]

Dragon Ball Z's musical history: a sordid tale of plagiarists, charlatans, credit thieves, and ghost writers.

I wonder, if that's a general problem throughout the industry.
Nice sig by the way.

[cRookie_Monster]

Sigh... kinda like "synthesist" and "music engineer" for us. I had "Music Editor" too, but that's actually how I started.

Ghost writing is a big thing in the industry. Always has been. I hear crazy stuff even some bigger name guys have to endure to get work.

One guy actually got justice

http://www.filmmusicmag.com/?p=278

I was at the GameSoundCon last year and Marty O'Donnell (Halo) ended his keynote with a call for people to think about solutions to the work for hire problem, where people often don't get credited. I was the first person to shake his hand after that talk and thank him for bringing it up.