Jon Bon Jovi sued for $400 billion by a Boston musician

Bon Jovi Sued for Giving Lyrics A Bad Name

Posted Oct 11th 2008 1:00PM by TMZ Staff

http://www.tmz.com/2008/10/11/bon-jovi-sued-for-giving-lyrics-a-bad-name/



Jon Bon Jovi is being sued for 400 bil -- yes, billion bucks by a Boston musician who says Jovi allegedly borrowed lyrics from his Boston Red Sox anthem entitled, "(Man I Really) Love This Team."

Samuel Bartley Steele, the front man for a band calling themselves "The Chelsea City Council", believes Bon Jovi heard his song while campaigning in Boston for John Kerry in '04, then used the lyrics in his own song entitled, "I Love This Town."

Regardless of the result -- Steele is really livin' on a prayer if he thinks he's going to get that amount of cash.

A Bon Jovi spokesperson says they haven't seen the lawsuit yet.

Tony Bongiovi is a record producer and recording engineer. He helped to remodel an old building in Manhattan -- once a power plant for Edison, and later a television studio -- into the Power Station recording studio in 1977.

Bongiovi was born in the borough of Raritan, New Jersey located in Central Jersey. He attended Bridgewater-Raritan High School West.

He has produced records by Gloria Gaynor, Talking Heads, Aerosmith (Classics Live) and Ramones (Rocket to Russia & Leave Home), Chic and many more. Early in his career, as an engineer, he worked the console for a number of sessions with Jimi Hendrix, as well as some of Hendrix's posthumous releases under producer Alan Douglas.

He is the second cousin of Jon Bon Jovi, and helped Jon in his early career by giving him a job at the Power Station and by allegedly financing and producing early demo recordings and paying for singing lessons. An album, John Bongiovi: The Power Station Years was released in 1999, featuring Tony Bongiovi's early recordings of Jon, before he changed the spelling of his name. The cousins had differing opinions on who should receive what and after Bon Jovi, the group broke out, an out of court settlement was reached.

Bongiovi's most recent production is 'As above so below' the debut CD of the hard rock band NoEnd, released in South America by Sony/BMG and the band called Deep Side on Jive records.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Bongiovi