Oh, phooey! I'm just gonna put in the #%!/+@!! line breaks myself and hope that Joe or someone will delete the screwed -up post above.
Genie

Bartholomew,
What a great idea! Do you have any CDs of such compilations?

You know, I think one reason there are so many "singer-songwriters"* singing and recording
so many crappy to mediocre songs lies in the extensions of the copyright laws
to the point where nothing written (i.e., copyrighted) in the last 75 years
can be recorded or performed for $ without paying what can be high royalties.

I would love to record great songs of Hank Williams, the Gershwins, Duke Ellington, Paul Simon,
Bob Dylan, Bob Wills, Lieber and Stoller, Irving Berlin, Jimmie Rodgers,
and many other composers/songwriters whose names may be less widely recognized. But to do a CD
with ten such songs on it would, I am told, mean paying $7.50 in royalties alone for each CD burned!
I am afraid that many song treasures will be lost to our descendents
because copyrights now persist so long after an author's demise.
Even the "great" songwriters often wrote 10 to 1000 so-so songs for every gem.
(Irving Berlin, e.g., is said to have written at least 1500 songs--out of which maybe 30 to 60
are really memorable. Hank Williams also wrote a lot more songs than "hits.")
Once the "cream" has risen to the top,
it's a shame to let it spoil because it's too expensive to consume it!
Let me illustrate the point with one more example:
Every singer and her/his brother/sister seems to record a Christmas CD that includes
all the old Christmas hymns and public domain favorites (Deck The Hall, Silent Night, etc.).
Why? I imagine it's because they don't have to pay royalties on these!
Even in the "folk" realm, the music of the 20th C. is mostly under copyright.

Genie