A Guy Called Gerald is the music alias of Gerald Simpson who is the artist behind the iconic acid house track “Voodoo Ray”.

Voodoo Ray is an ’80s classic that first rose to fame as an anthem of Manchester’s world-famous venue The Haçienda, then it went on to be one of the biggest selling underground electronic music tracks of its time.

On the 20th of May 2021, Gerald Simpson posted on his Facebook account that he never received any money from the sales of his single Voodoo Ray or his 1989 album Hot Lemonade.

Both the single and album were originally released on the UK label Rham Records which is based in Merseyside, the same region as the city of Liverpool. In his statement on Facebook about Rham Records, Simpson said: “It ceased operations in 1992 when Peter Leay, the owner, disappeared, after telling me the bad news about the collapse of the record’s earlier distributor.

“Peter Leay had ran off with what was going to be my future. I had plans to build a studio in Manchester to develop artists like me. In the end I had to sign Subscape with Sony/CBS where I had to focus on the GCG artist project.’ Later on, Simpson was able to locate Leay and get his music signed back to him, although ‘all the original money had got tied up in a Merseyside corner shop”.

Simpson then details how, when Rham Records was rebooted in 2019 by a man who was formally Peter Leay’s assistant, the label uploaded his music to Spotify without permission or paying any royalties.

Rham Records has publicly responded to Simpson saying: “We are aware of a recent social media post by Gerald Simpson regarding payment of royalties. We refute the allegations made in his statement, and his recollection of events. We have repeatedly attempted to communicate with Gerald and his business manager in order to pay royalties due to him, but he has not so far acknowledged us. If Gerald would like to contact us we will be happy to send any money currently due to him immediately.”

There has yet to be a public response on the topic from Simpson.