Artful Codger, we could go round and round on the Carter Family songs, and not come up with a conclusive answer. I suppose the safest thing to do would be to pay royalties to everyone who claims copyright on every song, and that would mean paying royalties many times over on a number of songs on this list.

I would suggest that nobody sings "Carter Family songs" the way the Carter Family sang them; and modern interpretations of these songs are often far closer to the original songs, than the Carter Family interpretations were - although the Carter Family versions certainly had influence on all subsequent interpretations.

And I think that's the case with all of the songs on Jo's list. Certainly there are seminal recordings that have an influence on all subsequent interpretations, but the primary source is the original source - and I'll betcha that in most cases, the "seminal" interpreters did not pay royalties to the original source.

So, I say, don't bother paying royalties unless a song clearly comes from one particular source, or if the original source is still eligible to receive royalties.

Who's collecting royalties on Leadbelly songs these days? Do they really have a legitimate right to those royalties?

-Joe-

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Jo, can you give us a verse of Fare Thee Well/1000 Miles, so we know which song you're singing? Any others on your list that I mis-linked?