FEDELE’S FORTUNE JUST MILLION-DOLLAR MIRAGE?

Dallas ad man Anthony Fedele appears to be learning a harsh lesson in the don’t-count-your-millions-till-the-check-clears school of accounting, as practiced by the record industry. Three months ago, we reported that Fedele would make a million dollars off his album, “Pope John Paul II Sings at the Festival of Sacrosong,” a hastily produced effort that was selling by the carload in conjunction with the Pope’s visit to the United States. Then bad things started to happen fast. Infinity Records, the label through which the album was being distributed, and a company that Fedele had chosen because of its rock-solid reputation, abruptly folded in November. Now MCA, the entertainment conglomerate that owned Infinity, has picked up distribution of the defunct label’s recordings. A source in the record distribution business in Dallas says there are warehouses full of unsold Pope albums here.

Meanwhile, Fedele has been left not knowing exactly to what extent he was holding the bag. At press time he said he understood the album had sold at least 300,000 copies. Fedele contends that he won’t lose money on the project, even though he and his partners paid around $100,000 for the rights to the record. “1 still think the album has unlimited potential,” he says. “Someone is going to make a lot of money out of it.”