The son of a Chicago record man who released one of Willie Cobbs’ early singles is suing the late blues singer’s estate. Michael Brown says a 1971 contract gave his family’s company, Lawn Music, the publishing rights to two Cobbs songs, “Slow Down, Baby” and “Hoppin’ Bird,” and that the Cobbs family has been collecting money that should have gone to Lawn Music.
Brown filed the case without a lawyer on Oct. 15, 2026, in federal court in Chicago, for himself and for Lawn Music Company. It names the Estate of Willie C. Cobbs, the estate’s executor Phillip Cobbs, and Cobbs’ daughter, Latasha Cobbs Carthans. The case, Brown v. Estate of Willie C. Cobbs, No. 1:26-cv-12656, is before U.S. District Judge LaShonda A. Hunt.
None of Brown’s claims has been proven, and no response from the Cobbs family appears on the docket. The 69-page filing also contains documents that complicate his account, including a later deal over the same songs and emails showing part of the dispute was cleared up years ago.
Who Willie Cobbs was
Cobbs, an Arkansas-born singer and harmonica player, is best remembered for “You Don’t Love Me,” which he recorded in 1960. The song was later covered by the Allman Brothers Band, John Mayall, Albert King and Ike & Tina Turner, among others. Cobbs died in October 2021 at 89, according to Living Blues magazine and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Before that hit, Cobbs cut a single in Chicago for Joe Brown’s Ruler label, blues historian Bill Dahl has written. Joe Brown also co-founded the Chicago blues label J.O.B. Records in 1949. A Ruler Records song list in the court filing, marked 1958, includes “Slow Down Baby.”
Michael Brown is one of Joe Brown’s children, according to a 2010 agreement with BMI that is part of the filing. In it, the Brown family also states that Joe Brown died in 1976 and that a Cook County court appointed Michael administrator of his estate in 2009.
What the 1971 contract says
The lawsuit centers on a “Popular Songwriter’s Contract” dated Jan. 28, 1971. It was signed by Joe Brown for Lawn Music Company, which it describes as “a Chicago company,” and by Willie C. Cobbs, and it covers “Slow Down, Baby” and “Hoppin’ Bird.”
Under the contract, Cobbs sold the two songs to Lawn Music as their publisher. In return, it promised him songwriter royalties, such as 5 cents for each copy of sheet music sold and half of what the publisher earned from licensing recordings.
Brown says the deal gave Lawn Music all of the publishing rights. He claims Cobbs later moved the publishing to La Tasha Publishing, a company in his daughter’s name based in Brinkley, Arkansas, a change Brown dates to 1994, and that the family kept royalties that belonged to Lawn Music. Screenshots of BMI’s song database in the filing list La Tasha Publishing as one of the publishers of “Hoppin Bird.”
A 2009 deal and a dispute that was cleared up
The filing also includes a handwritten agreement that Michael Brown and Willie Cobbs signed in front of an Arkansas notary on Oct. 9, 2009. In it, each side gave the other a 50% share of certain rights in songs on the Ruler label, and the song list attached to it includes both “Slow Down Baby” and “Hoppin’ Bird.” The complaint does not say how that agreement fits with its claim to all of the publishing rights.
Emails in the filing also show that one part of the fight over “Slow Down Baby” was resolved in 2022. On Oct. 31 that year, a licensing director at Wise Music Group told Brown the song was “in dispute at Harry Fox with another publisher CD BABY BETA OBO LA TASHA MUSIC.” A week later he wrote: “We were able to get the other publisher CD BABY BETA OBO LA TASHA MUSIC to remove their claim.” Brown’s lawsuit says royalty accountings are still being withheld and the money that was diverted has not been recovered.
The probate order and a failed arbitration
After Cobbs died, his estate went through probate in Monroe County, Arkansas. In an order signed Feb. 15, 2023, Circuit Judge Danny W. Glover authorized Phillip Cobbs to give Latasha Cobbs Carthans “all royalties and rights to receive royalties” her father was entitled to. The order says Cobbs’ will left his assets to his siblings, and that they agreed the royalty rights should go to his daughter.
By then, Lawn Music, represented by Brown, had already taken the dispute to the American Arbitration Association, as the 1971 contract allows. Its September 2022 demand valued the claim at $300,000 to under $500,000. An arbitrator dismissed the case on July 17, 2023, because there was no proof that Cobbs’ executor had been served. “This is not a finding on the merits,” the arbitrator wrote. Lawn Music was left to pay $9,350 in fees plus the arbitrator’s $2,137.50, and a request to change the award was denied in August 2023.
The award also says Brown told the arbitrator that Cobbs died in March 2022, and it states that “Mr. Cobbs resided and died in Mississippi.” Brown’s own later filing in that case says Cobbs lived in Brinkley, Arkansas.
What Brown is asking for now
In the new case, Brown claims breach of contract. He asks for an accounting of “all publishing and writer royalties collected for ‘Slow Down, Baby,’ ‘Hoppin’ Bird,’ and related compositions from 1994 to the present,” including money paid through BMI, the Harry Fox Agency and Embassy Music. He puts his losses at more than $15,000 and asks the court to hold in trust any royalties paid out under the Arkansas probate order.
The court issued summonses for all three defendants on Oct. 15, 2026. Once they are served, they can answer the complaint or ask the judge to dismiss it.
Related: Tina Turner’s son Ike Jr. dies at 67.
Featured image: The Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in Chicago, home of the Northern District of Illinois. Photo: Ken Lund / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
