It's the money, not that there was all that much for the singers, but for some collectors it was the only way to finance their scholarship. For them it was the love of the music. For the record companies and the publishers (who realized that "there was gold in them thar hills.") they didn't necessarily have pay out much in royalties. Pete Seeger once told the tale of talking to secretary at the record company to give her the information on songs he had just recorded. When he told her that BARBARA ALLEN was traditional, to his amazement she replied, Oh, Thank you." It meant that they wouldn't have to pay out composer royalties. If Pete had copyrighted his arrangement of the song he would have collected that money, but he didn't even think of doing that.


Mark Ross