Let's give the composers some credit

Subject: RE: Let's give the composers some credit
From: PHJim
Date: 22 May 11 - 11:56 PM

In 1949, K.C. Douglas recorded Mercury Boogie. The Steve Miller Band changed the title to Mercury Blues when they recorded it in 1976. David Lindley had a hit with it in 1981 on his El Rayo Ex album, the first version I ever heard. Slide guitarist Roy Rogers and country singer Alan Jackson also made great versions of this song. Meat Loaf and Dwight Yoakam also recorded it, though I`ve never heard their versions. Despite this, no one seems to have heard of K.C. Douglas.

Subject: RE: Let's give the composers some credit
From: bubblyrat
Date: 23 May 11 - 10:17 AM

A recent programme on British TV , ostensibly about "folk" music , featured an attractive Scottish lady singing "Shoals Of Herring" ,which was described merely as a "Scottish Song " , with no mention of Jimmy Miller , aka Ewen McColl from Manchester. Similarly neglected is Roy Williamson , late of The Corries ,whose name is often conspicuous by its absence where renditions of "Flower Of Scotland" are concerned .

Subject: RE: Let's give the composers some credit
From: Stringsinger
Date: 23 May 11 - 02:26 PM

Genie, try "Sailing, Sailing Over the Bounding Main" to "Puff" also.

Subject: RE: Let's give the composers some credit
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 06 Jul 11 - 11:51 PM

About writing new lyrics to another tune- "Rum and Coca-Cola" uses the tune of "L'Annee Passee". The only thing is that if someone wanted to write new lyrics to the "Rum and Coca-Cola" melody, they would probably be sued because it was copyrighted (by someone who didn't even write the song, just rewrote the verses!) so if you want to use another tune, use a traditional one.

Subject: RE: Let's give the composers some credit
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 07 Jul 11 - 09:11 AM

Re Ewan McColl songs: I think it was the presenter, not the performer who said or implied that "Shoals of Herring" was a Scottish song, but it would have been good to attribute it more correctly, and certainly Scotland is not the only place where herring was fished: most of the locations mentioned in the song are well south of the Border!.

I didn't know until very recently, that the tune for his "Song of the Fishgutters" was borrowed from an older song in the Stewart family tradition (Elizabeth Stewart sang a snatch of it at Girvan Festival - a song about Bennachie).

And I was just looking up "The Manchester Rambler": on Wikipedia and other sites it says the tune is borrowed from Haydn's 94th symphony!

Subject: RE: Let's give the composers some credit
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 07 Jul 11 - 10:41 AM

If anything ' Shoals of Herring ' would be a Norfolk song, it was based on the speach patterns of Sam Larner, using Labans Theory of Efforts, when Ewan MacColl first sang it to Sam Larner he said he'd known it all his life.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Let's give the composers some credit
From: GUEST,Don Wise
Date: 07 Jul 11 - 02:49 PM

As someone who has, over the years, cobbled together a song or two and made tunes for texts exhumed from dusty local history archives, here's my two penn'orth. I may stray off-topic a little!
When I sing a song someone else has written I always try to give credit where credit is due, something which on the folk/acoustic music 'scene' is fairly easy, although I have one song where I can only attribute the text to 'anon'. When it comes to the 'standards/pop'n'rock' world things get difficult-even with google. Even presenters of radio shows can shine through sloppy research e.g. they've never heard of Ewen McColl.
When I started song-writing, I was producing 'Mock-Traditional' style songs, along with many other better known writers. Hearing one of your own songs introduced by a singer as 'traditional' was a sort of accolade! A seal of acceptance and, perhaps, quality(?).On the other hand, it's nice to hear yourself being given the credit for a good song- unless of course, the other singer mangles it up completely!
As far as borrowing tunes is concerned, surely one of the reasons that the denizens of Seven Dials wrote to existing tunes was that it simplified spreading their songs among the populace. Coming home from market with a new broadside, it was a reasonable bet that somebody in the pub would know the tune specified for the song. And of course, an existing tune makes a useful framework when you're writing- the only problem is, some tunes, e.g.'Van Diemans Land', are so insiduous that it's well nigh impossible to find your own tune once the song is complete!
On stage, I rarely plug my songs as my own work unless they are tied to specific events or personal experiences. Ditto with tunes for songs exhumed from the archives.(I can think of one group in the UK who might be surprised to know where one of their songs actually comes from!) The town of Bakewell never knew there was a song about their witches until 2009, 35 years after I wrote it. Songs can catch up with their writer!

Don W.

Subject: RE: Let's give the composers some credit
From: Jack Campin
Date: 08 Jul 11 - 05:41 AM

One I only just realized: Adam Macnaughtan's "Jeely Piece Song" uses the tune of "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour On the Bedpost Overnight?" which I used to attribute to Lonnie Donegan.

Google finds it credited like this:

Based on the 1924 original by Ernest Hare & Billy Jones
"Does The Spearmint Lose Its Flavor On The Bedpost Overnight?
(Marty Bloom / Ernest Breuer / Billy Rose)"

Are Ernest Hare and Ernest Breuer the same person?
Was Billy Jones a pseudonym for Billy Rose?
Where did Marty Bloom fit in?
And where did Donegan find it?

Subject: RE: Let's give the composers some credit
From: reynard
Date: 08 Jul 11 - 09:27 AM

"Hearing one of your own songs introduced by a singer as 'traditional' was a sort of accolade!"

Copyright and royalty issues aside, it's good for new songs to be absorbed into the tradition as "anon". What upsets me is when traditional songs are claimed or attributed to famous singers/writers/collectors. I recently ploughed through dozens of Youtube versions of "Jock of Hazeldean" with a view to singing it myself and was surprised to see it repeatedly attributed to Walter Scott. He famously "improved" songs that he collected and may have written or changed verses but he did not, as far as I know, make any claim to have written it himself. I think a similar situation pertains to some of Burns' songs, but I haven't done the research (I tried searching on Burns but my computer froze)- perhaps someone can enlighten me further?

Subject: RE: Let's give the composers some credit
From: ripov
Date: 08 Jul 11 - 08:39 PM

Regarding new words for old tunes, maybe some tunes are popular because they are easy to write new words to.
See the "i-pad song" thread. No-one has supplied a new tune. But it's pretty obvious which tunes the word-writers were thinking of!

Subject: RE: Let's give the composers some credit
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 09 Jul 11 - 12:24 AM

Jack Campin: Billy Jones and Ernest Hare were 2 of my favorite singers of comical songs. (They also did some sentimental ones.) They did not use pseudonyms (that I know of) and they mostly did not write their own songs. They often performed as a duo called The Happiness Boys.

Several songs that they performed have been posted at Mudcat:

IN THE LITTLE RED SCHOOL HOUSE
DOES THE SPEARMINT LOSE ITS FLAVOR ON THE BEDPOST OVERNIGHT
IF YOU KNEW SUSIE (LIKE I KNOW SUSIE)
SINCE HENRY FORD APOLOGIZED TO ME
THE FARMER TOOK ANOTHER LOAD AWAY
BRIDGET O'FLYNN (WHERE'VE YA BEEN?)
I WISH I WAS IN PEORIA
ALL BY YOURSELF IN THE MOONLIGHT

The Internet Archive has a big collection of their recordings, here.

I imagine Lonnie Donegan discovered them the same way a lot of musicians of his era did: by sorting through bins of old 78-rpm records at jumble sales.

Subject: RE: Let's give the composers some credit
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Jul 11 - 08:11 AM

fisher lads of donegal
http://www.youtube.com/user/dickmilesmusic#p/u/27/F7OZUce-E-U

Subject: RE: Let's give the composers some credit
From: PHJim
Date: 09 Jul 11 - 09:47 AM

Here's a little bit of John Hartford's Tryin' To Do Something To Get Your Attention:

I tried real hard to make this song not sound like some other song I've written before.
If I did it's because my style and style is based on limitations.
I tried real hard not to make this song sound like some other song some other singer-songwriter might have written before.
And if I did, that's 'cause it's music, and music is based on repetition.