Eight decades after Albert E. Brumley began piecing together the gospel standard “I’ll Fly Away” in an Oklahoma cotton field, the song continues to rake in cash for one man: the songwriter’s son Bob Brumley.
Bob Brumley’s siblings have a problem with that.
In a case that has fractured the family, Bob Brumley’s three surviving siblings, the widow of a fourth and the children of a fifth are suing him in federal court in Nashville. They hope to capture a share of the song, which generated about $1.4 million in royalties between 2004 and the third quarter of 2009, according to court documents....