There's a thread further down called Do You Perform or Record Covers? which is mainly talking about performing covers of other people's singer/songwriter songs, but it got me thinking about something slightly different.

Wondered what other people thought about relatively well known performers doing covers of other people's arrangements of traditional songs? Something that I have seen quite a few people in the UK doing over the past few years, and it offends me somewhat although I have difficulty putting my finger on exactly why... maybe because I've never seen somebody do it and credit the arranger, which seems a little unfair. I'm talking about where somebody somewhere has recorded a song with harmonies etc and somebody else has lifted the exact phrasing & harmonies, presumably from the cd, but performs and introduces it as 'traditional'. Which to my mind either implies that they want the audience to believe they arranged it themselves (and what about copyright of arrangements, PRS etc? - I know it's a very fuzzy line but in some people's eyes that's THEFT!) or they are sufficiently ignorant or unaware that they think that's how music works - that a version of a song exists fully formed 'in the tradition' and that it doesn't make any difference whether you arrange it yourself or not.

Examples that spring to mind are the Witches of Elswick doing Daddy Fox but using a Lais tune & harmonies (yes I know they put different words to it, but other than that it sounds the same), the Threlfall sisters doing a Silly Sisters song, Taggart & Wright doing CBS and Medieval Babes songs, Jim Moray doing Chris Wood's version of tune, words & phrasing for Lord Bateman (yes I know he put funky industrial instrumental backing but if you just listen to the vocal it is note for note the same as Chris Wood's version).

I'm not saying that it makes it bad music or a bad performance, I've really enjoyed concerts featuring all of the above artists and many others who do the same thing, but it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth when I realise the original arranger is getting no credit for all their hard work. It's much more effort taking something from a manuscript or book and coming up with natural feeling phrasing and harmony lines than it is to work out what somebody else is doing on a cd and copy it.

what does anybody else think?

James