60's Tunes- Ownership, Appropriation and Copyright

I'm following up on an earlier hub about perspective, which can be found at the link below.. way way way down. As requested I will clarify the concept of blanching. The best example I can think of is the Elvis Presley (a white artist)song "Hound Dog" which was recorded on the "B" side of "Don't Be Cruel" in the late fifties, but was originally recorded by Big Mama Thornton (Which by the way was a compliment when it was originally used) a few years earlier early fifties - Source, one of the two dozen or so books I've read in the past month.

As I already mentioned, one reason for this was that white parents didn't want their kids listening to music recorded by black artists, and the lyrics were sometimes questionable. - Or maybe they simply forced parents to confront a changing reality- and the record companies were losing money, they weren't writing the lyrics, they weren't selling records. If they rewrote lyrics, they'd sell more records.

I was about to answer The question about whether appropriation of culture still happens in modern society with a no. But it does. A very prominent example is Eminem who faced ridicule and extreme opposition from both the white community and the black community early in his music career.

If, for instance, we were to hear Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" on the radio today. We may hear all of the underlying messages: We may hear about the uppers, the downers, and the message about using your head, but we would never know that the only way that song ever made it to the airwaves was because one particular DJ made it about using your head, instead of about drugs.

One thing that allows art of any kind, including music, to become popular is mass production. Academically, if a researcher spends ten years on a research project that proves that owning a particular pet helps you live longer, it won't help anything if that research is never distributed. Similarly If a man writes the best novel in the world, but publishes it independently, nobody outside of his closest circle of friends will ever read it because it is not likely to ever hit the major bookstores.

The same goes for music (But what about the blues you ask?? That was popular before records existed !! You Exclaim I'll get there...) Sheet music existed before recording mediums did, thus the music spread, but using an example of a song that has been done many times, in many different versions, and by many different singers. The *music* for the song "Hey Joe" was copyrighted in the fifties (?) and recorded repeatedly by artists from Dylan to Hendrix, and ultimately it was the recordings that we remember.

And when we remember the song Blowin in the Wind, we don't remember who wrote it, or even who sang it first (Dylan on both counts) we remember who sang the version we like best. (Peter Paul and Mary) Similarly "Universal Soldier" We do not remember that Buffy St. Marie wrote it, some of us don't even know she performed it. We do, however remember Donovan's version. It is, therefore, performance rather than authorship that suggests ownership in music. (Do you really think Britney wrote Oops I did It again? -But then, with lyrics like that she just might have, maybe I should have chosen a better example 8))

Now.. back to the blues. Part of the blues Part of the reason for blues as an art form was that it enabled the artist to express their woes about their world without self pity. (If you've ever listened to early blues they aren't sad and depressing like modern blues, you can actually dance to them)

These were conditions that were shared all over the US, particularily the southern US, and people like Ma and Pa Rainey traveled the US singing and shouting the blues.(Keep in mind that most blues artists were black and at the beginning of the twentieth century slavery had ended, but living conditions had not improved, and in many conditions had, in fact, worsened.) -That's an over simplified explanation, but it should work.

Academic Copyright, or literary copyright, that which makes it illegal for someone to copy any of the content of this hub and claim it as their own, or for that matter, for a university student to use the same paper for two different classes. (Writing a paper about the early mythological basis of Genesis for both History and Theology for instance) Is a relatively new law.

Let me clarify. As far as the music world goes, there are still kinks that still need to be worked out. With the advent of the internet, as I'm sure everyone is aware, there are still issues of copyright infringement with the free distribution of music. And this is where I cover my butt by saying Please, if you are going to download any of the songs I have mentioned in any of these posts, please find a way to do so legally. There are plenty of sites where you can do so for only a couple of dollars.

But what made the difference fifty years ago was the following: A copyright allowed for the covering (or re-recording) of a song, as long as there were no substantial changes to the lyrics. This is why there are a dozen versions of "Hey Joe" floating around. However many of these are copyright violations, because they change the content of the song, some of them to the extent that the meaning itself is changed. The Hendrix Version for instance, has Joe actually killing his girlfriend for cheating on him and running away down south so he won't get caught. The original, copywritten version, has Joe only talking about the crime. Hendrix does, however stay true to the dialog form of the original..