Origins: Are these Trad or PD?

Subject: Origins: Are these Trad or PD?
From: Kudzuman
Date: 06 May 03 - 11:36 PM

Thinking about recording some of these with some friends. Any insights as to whether these are copyright free. My friends knew these from festivals, but we have no clue as to whether they are trad. or PD or someones tune. Help?! Thanks in advance to all you great Catters!!

Kudzuman

Subject: RE: Origins: Are these Trad or PD?
From: Kudzuman
Date: 06 May 03 - 11:38 PM

Ooooops!! Here they are...the tunes I mean...
My Gal's A Corker
   Give Me Back My Fifteen Cents
    How Many Biscuits Can You Eat?
      Take this Hammer

Subject: RE: Origins: Are these Trad or PD?
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 07 May 03 - 12:53 AM

Traditional Ballad Index says "author unknown" for "How Many Biscuits..." Recorded 1928 ff.
Take This Hammer probably safe. First appears in Sandburg, 1927, author unknown in Trad. Ballad Index. Recorded 1928 ff. Also in Courlander, Negro Folk Music, several verses, no author. Courlander and most oothers classify this as a version of John Henry. This one's gotta be free.
My Gal's a Corker is all over the place, uncredited. An arrangement was registered in 1985 by Dorkin and Pederson, no author listed. Can't find an author for it, but there could be one. May have another title.
"Give Me back..." See discussion in thread 31792. Uncle Dave Macon?: Give Me back

Subject: RE: Origins: Are these Trad or PD?
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 07 May 03 - 12:58 AM

The above mostly for my own information- No one should take it as a final word.

Subject: RE: Origins: Are these Trad or PD?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 May 03 - 02:06 AM

The infamous Abby Sale [grin] posted information on "My Gal's a Corker" here (click). Looks like it's public domain, also - Abby dates it prior to 1895.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Origins: Are these Trad or PD?
From: Stewie
Date: 07 May 03 - 03:35 AM

I have acquired Meade et alia 'Country Music Sources' since my contribution to the thread linked above by Q. Meade confirms Binkley Bros as earliest recording of 'Give me back ...' [1928] and cites no earlier printed reference.

Meade gives the 'Biscuit' songs under the generic title of 'This Morning, This Evening, So Soon'. The earliest is Carolina Tar Heels under the title 'Ain't No Use Workin' So Hard' [Vi 20544 in 1927]. The first with 'Biscuit' in the title is Dr Humphrey Bate & His Possum Hunters 'How Many Biscuits Can You Eat' [Br 232 in 1928]. The earliest printed reference given is Dorothy Scarborough 'On the Trail of Negro Folk Song' 1925.

Meade confirms Q's earliest date of Sandburg 1927 for 'Take This Hammer' and gives earliest recording as that by Sweet Brothers under the title 'I Got A Bulldog' [Gnt 6620 in 1928].

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Origins: Are these Trad or PD?
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 07 May 03 - 07:25 AM

"Take My Hammer" is recorded by Newman L. White, American Negro Folk Songs, 1928, Gang Laborers, 18, p. 259, reported by the MS of J. H. Reynolds, 1915-1916, from Auburn, Alabama.

Take my hammer,
Carry it to the Captain,
Tell him I'm gone,
Tell him I'm gone.
If he ask you was I running,
Tell him no,
Tell him no.
Tell him I was going across the Blue Ridge Mountains
Walking slow, yes, walking slow.

Also see 23D, p. 261, This Old Hammer, MS. of H. M. Kilpatrick, 1915-1916, Pickins Co., Alabama;

This old hammer killed John Henry,
But it can't kill me.
Take this old hammer, take it to the Captain,
Tell him I'm gone, babe, tell him I'm gone.

Also 24, p. 262, MS. of J. D. Johnson, 1919, from North Carolina, has the lines:
Take this hammer, give it to the walker,
Tell him I'm gone, babe, tell him I'm gone.
If he ax you, where I've gone to,
Just tell him I'm gone, babe, tell him I'm gone.

Subject: RE: Origins: Are these Trad or PD?
From: Kudzuman
Date: 07 May 03 - 07:17 PM

Thanks for all the great answers, but it seems nobody said, "Yep! This is PD or Trad". Anymore help would be appreciated. Thanks. Is the limit still at 70 years for copyright? If so, then anything before 1933 would be fair game for recording. Is that right? Thanks all!!

Kudzuman

Subject: RE: Origins: Are these Trad or PD?
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 07 May 03 - 07:45 PM

Kudzuman, look at the threads on copyright. Protection of 100 years or so is now possible. Material after 1923 is all being re-registered.
Looks like the songs you listed are OK, as long as you don't use somebody else's registered. arrangement. BUT-

Get the Government website with copyright regulations. They are complex, and it takes a lawyer to give a full interpretation. The situation is cluttered with court cases.
Some threads here have a lot of discussion, but some of the advice and information is wrong or biased by uninformed opinions.   

To get the current statutes and situation, go to the government website: www.copyright.gov/title17/. New regulations went into effect toward the end of 2002. US Copyright Law
Note that even the Government website is not fully up-to-date.

Subject: RE: Origins: Are these Trad or PD?
From: Frankham
Date: 08 May 03 - 07:20 PM

Here's the thing about PD. It may have to be proven in court. Anyone can copyright their version of a PD song but the trick is to make it stick.

The Copyright of a song does not automatically protect it from lawsuits or infringement. Often publishers have the wherewithall to defend their copyrights but sometimes many writers don't. And sometimes writers don't get paid for their copyright either. Eben Ahbez song "Nature Boy" is a case in point.

Best thing you can do is check on how many copyrights are on a particular song. If there are enough, then it's probably a PD song with re-writes.

"How Many Biscuits" is a variant of Crawdad Song, Tell Old Bill, Sugar Babe. I'd vote for PD.

Don't know "My Gal's a Corker" but "Take This Hammer" has so many variants that it has to be PD.

Here's the problem. When does a lyric change constitute a genuine copyright? You can take an obscure verse from any song and make a new one out of it. I have a hunch that "How Many Biscuits" was done this way.

Let's put it this way, if you record what you think is a PD song and have checked it out thoroughly, then you can be ready to defend it in court.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Origins: Are these Trad or PD?
From: GUEST,satchel
Date: 09 May 03 - 12:15 PM

Since Mississippi John Hurt recorded this in both 1928 and 1963 after his rediscovery, (see "Avalon Blues 1963" Rounder Records,1991), I'd say it's neither TRAD or PD yet.

Moreover, the Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band put it (along with Hurt's "Casey Jones") on their 1988 "Almost Acoustic" disc (Concensus Reality/Grateful Dead Merchandising, 1988). Both are credited to Hurt, published by Wynwood Music, and protected by BMI--and you definitely don't want to mess with THOSE guys at BMI!

Subject: Lyr Add: MY OLD HAMMAH (from Carl Sandburg)
From: Stewie
Date: 09 May 03 - 09:21 PM

Hurt's 1928 recording, under the title 'Spike Driver Blues', is on CD in Sony's Roots 'N Blues series: Mississippi John Hurt 'Avalon Blues: Complete 1928 Okeh Recordings' Columbia Legacy CK 64986. As noted above, the 1963 recording is on 'Avalon Blues 1963' Rounder CD 1081. On neither the Sony nor the Rounder CD is there any mention of 'Wynwood Music' or BMI. Maybe what is copyrighted is a Garcia arrangement.

For the record, the Sandburg text is as follows:

MY OLD HAMMAH

My old hammah
Shina like silvah
Shina like gol'
Yes, shina like gol'

Dere ain' no hammah
Ina this old mountain
Shina like mine
Yes, shina like mine!

This old hammah
Kill my pahtnah
But it can't kill me
No, it can't kill me!

I ben a-workin'
Ona this hyer railroad
Fo' long years, boys
Yes, fo' long years!

O next winter
Be so col'
Be so col'
Yes, be so col'!

Source: Carl Sandburg 'The American Songbag' Harcourt, Brace and Company 1927 (1990 edition edited by Garrison Keillor), p458.

Sandburg also references 'Swannanoa Town' in Sharp's collection and gives 4 specimen verses from 10-verse text in 'English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians':

When you hear my bulldog barking
Somebody round, baby, somebody round

When you hear my pistol firing
Another man dead, baby, another man dead

Look for me till your eye runs water
I'll be at home, baby, I'll be at home

Don't you remember last December
The wind blowed cold, baby, the wind blowed cold

[Sandburg p457]

Some of these verses occur in Bascom Lamar Lunsford's 'Swannanoa Tunnel' which may be found in the DT:

Swannanoa Tunnel 2

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Origins: Are these Trad or PD?
From: GUEST,satchel
Date: 10 May 03 - 01:41 PM

According to my thorough and highly scientific web search, "Wynwood Music," a member of National Music Publishers Association, handles mostly traditional stuff. See and

As for Garcia, he's published by "Ice Nine Publishing Co."

Thanks, Stewie, for the Sandburg version,and theother info.