I can't find a copy of the Dylan performance to link to on YouTube, but I listened to it on Spotify. It's a typical Dylan performance, sloppy guitar and muddy vocals. Yes, the melody of the vocal track is more-or-less similar to the singing of Nic Jones, but the Nic Jones singing and guitar work are far superior. I don't know what went on legally in the matter - did Nic Jones sue Bob Dylan about this song? Did Jones win? Or vice-versa?

Dave Hanson correctly says: Howard, the Bob Dylan website claims EVERTHING on it was written by Dylan, I'm fairly certain that this has nothing to do with the lad 'imself

I might add that the Bob Dylan Website and the Bob Dylan songbooks are notoriously inaccurate. The lyrics that are in print, are quite different from what Dylan actually sings. Those songbooks and lyrics and copyright claims all come from business people, not from Dylan. Dylan just sings the songs in front of a microphone, and then collects a paycheck. All that business stuff is out of his control. If there's a lawsuit, the business people handle it. It's highly unlikely that Dylan has spent much time in court dealing with copyright claims. The Men in Suits handle all that.

So, don't go heaping a lot of blame on Dylan. He just sings the songs, just like the rest of us do. The Men in Suits control all that business stuff.

I did the copyright research for the 1200 songs in the Rise Again Songbook, which was published in 2015. For the songs written recently enough to be under copyright control, we got print licenses from the publishers of the songs - or from the songwriters themselves. Our publisher, Hal Leonard, already had licenses for about half the songs, so those were an easy matter of just double-checking the information. I had to track down ownership and obtain licenses for a lot of the "folky" songs, and that could be challenging. Some people, like Pete St. John and the Corries, wouldn't grant us licenses, so we couldn't include songs like "The Rare Old Times" and "Flower of Scotland." It took me weeks to track down information about the ownership of "Tzena Tzena Tzena". Despite Richie's wonderful work on Carter Family Sources, we had to pay for licenses on almost all Carter Family songs, because Peerless claimed a copyright on them and Peerless is litigious.

I was bothered by what we had to do with traditional songs and songs in the public domain. We would name the author or note the song "traditional," but the copyright notice under those songs reads: Arr. © 2015 by Hal Leonard Corporation. Hal Leonard wanted a more strongly-worded copyright claim, but we were able to talk them into using this. If you look in songbooks and CDs, you'll see similar copyright claims on lots of traditional songs. It's what the Men in Suits do. If we had included "Canadee-I-O" in our book, we would have had to mark it, "Trad, Arr. © 2015 by Hal Leonard Corporation." Since our book includes only lyrics and chords, we would not have made reference to Nic Jones in the copyright notice (although I would have mentioned his recording in the notes).

I wrote up the following caveat, and Hal Leonard allowed us to include it in the introduction to our book:

Traditional songs. There are many versions of almost every “traditional” song in this book. There is no “correct” version of any traditional song and the variants included here are in no way intended to be “definitive.” For the most part, they were chosen because they are reasonably authentic versions that work well for group singing. Try researching different versions of a song you’re learning and listening to a number of different recordings. Please don’t use our books to tell another singer that she or he is singing the “wrong” version of a song Songs in the public domain are indicated in this book with “Arr. © 2015 Hal Leonard Corporation.” under the song. The publisher has copyright to this particular arrangement, but you do not have to get permission to record or reprint lyrics to the song itself. For any other song you must contact the copyright owner of the song for permission to use it in any way.

So, yeah, on every traditional song Dylan recorded, you'll see the claim "Trad, arr Dylan" or the like. The Men in Suits insist on that. But these are copyright claims. A copyright isn't ironclad until it's proved in court. Until that happens, copyrights are protected by the threat of lawsuits, and big publishers can file big lawsuits.

Don't blame Dylan for the copyright claim on "Canadee-i-o." It's his Men in Suits who do that stuff, and it's more-or-less the industry standard. If you want to make a living making music, you have to go along with the rules set by the Men in Suits.

My advice for musicians is to sing the songs and don't worry too much about the legalities. Let the Men in Suits handle that, because they won't let you do otherwise if you want to make a living in music.

I have a fascinating book titled Bob Dylan: All the Songs, by Philippe Margotin and Jean-Michel Duesdon (Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, New York, 2015).

Here's what it says about "Canadee-i-o," which appears on Dylan's Good as I Been to You album (1992)

Canadee-I-O
Traditional / Arrangement Bob Dylan / 4:23
Musician: Bob Dylan: vocals, gurtar / Recording Studio: Bob Dylan Garage Studio, Malibu, California. July—August 1992 / Producer: Debbie Gold / Sound Engineer: Micajah Ryan

Genesis and Production
Like many folk songs originating in England, “Canadee-I-O,” also known as “The Wearing of the Blue” and “Caledonia,” had a second life when the ballad arrived in Canada. It is an unusual love story. A young lady dresses up in sailor’s clothes to follow her lover, who has left to join a ship’s crew; “when the other sailors heard the news, /Well, they fell into a rage, /And with all the ship’s company” threaten to throw her overboard.
The captain rescues her, falls in love, and ‘when they come down to Canada /. . She’s married this bold captain.’
The English folksinger Nic Jones recorded a version for his album Penguin Eggs (1980). Twelve years later, Dylan adopted the same style in his interpretation, although he plays by strumming the guitar, a style very different from Jones's.
This ballad gives him the opportunity to vary his vocal intonation, which is both powerful and fragile.

So, there's what one Dylan books says about the song. I think what this book says about the relationship between the Jones and Dylan arrangement is truthful. The Jones arrangement is far superior. The Dylan arrangement, is typical Dylan. I'll leave it to the courts to decide who owns what, and I'll just enjoy the Nic Jones version of the song and ignore the one by Dylan - although I'm sure in a backhanded way that Dylan did a lot of good for Nic Jones, by making people aware of the Nic Jones version of the song.

-Joe-


Dick Miles, this is what I mean by posting the facts instead of just repeating "you don't know anything" allegations over and over again.