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02 Mar 09 - 03:20 PM (#2579568) Subject: Origins: Harry McClintock aka 'Hats McKay'? From: fhbals I'm doing some research on Harry McClintock, author (or at least, claimant) of "Big Rock Candy Mountain," "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum," et al; I came across a strange reference to McClintock in a biography of Peggy Lee ("Fever: The Life and Music of Miss Peggy Lee"), where the author notes she was sued by a "...banjo player named "Harry McClintock a.k.a. 'Hats McKay'" who claimed to have written the melody to a Lee hit song titled "Manana" some 30 years earlier under the title, "Midnight on the Ocean." I'm fairly sure this McClintock is *the* Harry McClintock, as he did claim authorship of "Midnight on the Ocean," under the title of "Ain't We Crazy." And McClintock seemed to have a pattern of claiming copyright of public domain material after adding some new lyrics or changing the melody, although he wasn't very successful in convincing courts of his ownership. In any case, I can't find him ever being referred to as "Hats McKay." Anyone know whether "Hats" was also "Haywire Mac"? |
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22 Dec 23 - 07:17 PM (#4194097) Subject: RE: Origins: Harry McClintock aka 'Hats McKay'? From: GUEST Hats McKay was Walter McKay; he performed in Australia for many years with the Fuller circuit as a multi-instrumentalist. |
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22 Dec 23 - 10:26 PM (#4194107) Subject: RE: Info: Harry McClintock aka 'Hats McKay'? From: cnd Tracking down this copyright claim was quite a conundrum -- I don't think it's the artist we're searching for here, but I'm not sure. This will be a bit circuitous, but bear with me. A fellow named Walter "Hats" McKay (pictured here - Experimental Musical Instruments, June 1995) published several songs from while living in San Francisco in the 1910s-1920s, but I couldn't find one by the name "Midnight on the Ocean." Texts I did find include Don't Send Me Back To Dublin, If Ireland Was Only Like Hawaii, and Samoa. [The Hawaiian theme is the connection to the man pictured]. I'm not sure if this is the same fellow GUEST refers to above. The book which fhbals referenced in the original post, Fever, p. 198, by Peter Richmond, attests that the song in question was copyrighted in the 1932 edition of the US Copyright Catalog. I found no song by that name under either McClintock (H.K.) or McKay (or even a song attributed to a Hats McKay), though there were five other titles to his name, including Cheese Song, My Last Old Dollar, Sweet Betsy From Pike, When it's Time To Shear the Sheep, and a collection entitled "Mac's Songs of the Road and Range." This last bit is the linchpin. Gavin also provides the teaser that the song was actually published by Sterling Sherwin. Sherwin's name was also featured on the song book (and in the copyright catalog), and upon finding a list of titles in the songbook (link), "It was midnight on the ocean" was included in the collection. I haven't found a version of the book available to read online. Further confirmation aside, that is indeed the same Haywire Mac McClintock as the folksinger. Where the appellation "Hats" comes in is to be determined. |
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23 Dec 23 - 03:06 PM (#4194174) Subject: RE: Info: Harry McClintock aka 'Hats McKay'? From: cnd After further research, it looks like the Australian and American "Hats" McKay are one in the same. And further, this seems to be a case of mistaken identity. Bear with me, but this will take a bit of explaining. "Hats" McKay entered the music scene in the early 1900s, first touring Australia around 1917, but shortly returned to the US to join the Navy in the First World War. He was known best for his steel guitar and banjo work, often also performing as a comedian in blackface, touring all over the world, from the Philippines to Siberia, at first with Julian Eltinge and later on his own. He continued to tour all over, but was especially well reported upon in Australia; he continued to frequent both there, San Francisco, and Hawaii throughout the 1920s. By the 1930s, he seems to have resided primarily in Hawaii, where he had a business as a dog importer, but continued touring; according to the an opinion issued by the NY Supreme Court (cited later), "from 1927 to 1942, the plaintiff [Walter C. McKay] gave performances outside of the United States, traveling in Europe, the Orient, and other distant countries." Sources: Sunday Times (Sydney, Australia), March 12, 1922, p. 18; The Honolulu Advertiser, December 7th, 1922, p. 6; The Billboard, May 20th, 1922, p. 35; The Billboard, October 29th, 1922, p. 42; The Billboard, January 2nd, 1926, p. 44; Honolulu Star-Bulletin, November 10th, 1933, p. 14 Now, to the court case. While there were multiple suits filed (see below), the longest-standing court was focused on the aforementioned Walter "Hats" McKay, who was said to be 72-years old in 1950. The man, described as an "itinerant minstrel," claimed that Peggy Lee and her husband, David Barbour, had stolen a song of his, entitled the "Laughing Song," in the creation of Manana. The opinion of the court was pretty cut-and-dry, noting that the original copies of the song's orchestration (from circa 1919 and 1937) had been lost and not trademarked, while a trio of melodic manuscripts supplied, purported to be from 1934, 1939, and 1943, were all but dismissed as falsified documents. The court summarized that "the plaintiff has failed to establish by a preponderance of the credible evidence that the individual defendants or either of them had access to or copied his composition, 'Laughing Song.' " Sources: McKay v. Barbour, Supreme Court, Special Term, New York County, Nov 22, 1950; Variety, November 15th, 1950, pp. 2, 62) Presently, I have a hard time believing that this man could be the same person as Haywire Mac. First of all, McClintock was born in 1884, while McKay would have been born in 1878, per the linked Variety article above. That said, I haven't found census records to match a Walter McKay born in 1878, but have found several pointing towards a Walter McKay born 1881-82, who married a woman named Lola from the Philippines. That matches with a VA Affairs Master Index card of a Walter Charles McKay who was born March 3rd, 1881 and passed December 18th, 1961 -- note that on immigration records, however, he repeatedly gave his birthdate as September 18th, 1881. (VA Form 3-7202a dated 1/8/62 - link - note: FamilySearch account required to view). Further records note that this man was born in New York, whereas McClintock is known to have been born in Ohio and raised in Tennessee. Additionally, McClintock established a "permanent residence" in San Francisco in 1915-16, and had a daily show on radio station KFRC starting in 1925, while numerous records from the time show McKay as having served in the Navy 1916-1918 and living in Hawaii or abroad for the 1920s and 1930s. So they pretty clearly seem to be different people -- "Hats McKay" wasn't a nickname used by Haywire Mac, at least that I've been able to establish. To me, the only question is when, where, and why Mac McClintock got mixed into this. And the answer is this: McClintock and Sherwin did indeed sue Peggy Lee and Dave Barbour for infringement of "Midnight on the Ocean" (a retitled version of his 1928 song Ain't We Crazy) for similarity of tune, but a preliminary investigation found that the tune was in public domain; McClintock and Sherwin dropped the suit by December 1949. The same song also led to two other suites, one dropped for lack of evidence, and the third, the above-detailed claim by Hats McKay. Likely, at some point or another, one biographer got confused and mashed McKay and McClintock into one name due to the similarity of their surnames and near-identical nature of their suits. Source: Is That All There Is, p. 108, by James Gavin I realize this is all a bit long-winded, but enough books, internet webpages, and other source claim the two men were one and the same that it felt necessary to prove definitively that they were not. |
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23 Dec 23 - 03:18 PM (#4194176) Subject: RE: Info: Harry McClintock aka 'Hats McKay'? From: cnd In conclusion, it appears as if the book by Peter Richmond, which was referenced in the original post, was likely the originator of the mix-up. |
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01 Jan 24 - 10:32 PM (#4194669) Subject: RE: Info: Harry McClintock aka 'Hats McKay'? From: GUEST,Jon Bartlett refresh |