It was 1982 when Sam Moore first had his name stolen.

The singer -- one half of the Sam & Dave soul duo that cut such 1960s hits as "Soul Man" and "Hold On! I'm Comin' " -- was relaxing in his California home when he got a call from his daughter, who was living back in his hometown of Miami.

"Why didn't you tell me you were coming through town?" his daughter asked,

having seen signs announcing "Sam & Dave" plastered all over a local club.

"That's not me, honey," the singer said, realizing that his former partner, Dave Prater (who has since passed away), had hired a different "Sam" to represent him.

"She went to the club, and she got into a tiff with the owner," recalled Moore, 62. "She said, 'That's wrong what you have on the marquee -- that's not my dad.' "

The club owner's reply: "So what?"

Such retorts -- common replies, according to veterans of the oldies circuit -- will no longer prevail if concerned rock 'n' rollers such as Moore, the Supremes' Mary Wilson and Joe Terry of Danny and the Juniors are successful in their efforts to remove impostors from concert halls.

On Thursday, Moore, Wilson and Terry testified before a U.S. congressional

committee studying the persistence of bogus groups and whether changes can

be made to copyright law to outlaw the phonies. Supporters of the move say fake performers are wolves in sheep's clothing, striking at the pocketbooks of original artists and undermining the trust of loyal audiences.

Moore and his wife and manager Joyce spent six years -- until Prater's death in 1988 -- battling Prater's fake Sam & Dave. The couple said that they lost their Encino, Calif., home as well as their car because of lost club work and mounting legal costs.

"We were in a position of playing catch-me-if-you-can from one end of the planet to the other," Joyce Moore recalled. "It was one of the most devastating, frustrating and depressing periods of Sam's life. We never tried to say that Dave Prater didn't have a right to his legacy and that which he legitimately participated in creating. What he didn't have, and what no one has, is the right to give some third party the right to impose themselves into the persona of the real guy."

Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), whose district includes the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, said a bipartisan group of House members is lining up to support amendments that would punish impostor groups.

"For many of us, some of our most powerful memories are identified through the music of a certain time," Kucinich said Friday (May 22). "We feel an obligation to the artists to make sure that their contribution to American music history is secure and that no one can obliterate their contribution or steal their name, reputation and fame."

Thursday's hearing was the first step toward drafting legislation that will likely be introduced next year. Current law offers no provisions to halt bogus performers from passing themselves off as original artists. Kucinich hopes to amend the Lanham Act of 1947, which oversees copyright, with a measure protecting original artists and punishing impostors.

Joyce Moore says their battle is a simple matter of truth. "Impostor groups are false advertising, as much so as if you went into the grocery store and bought what you thought was Grade A premium beef and you found out later it was horse meat," she said.

Kucinich added that his amendment aims to protect modern artists as well as those who currently ply their trade on the oldies circuit. "Years from now, we don't want some impostor out there saying they're R.E.M., Pearl Jam or the Beastie Boys," he said.