Cornfield Posted January 23 Posted January 23 Nothing wrong with Irish, German and other tunes but I'm mostly interested in American folk and folk related tunes. Has anyone created a tune book of Dylan, the Band or other Americana music acts?
JimR Posted January 23 Posted January 23 I wouldn't mind hearing "Angel From Montgomery" on 'tina, but I think most of these Americana tunes are still in copyright. 1
gcoover Posted January 23 Posted January 23 (edited) The main reason you don't see more recent songs and tunes in concertina books is most likely due to copyright issues. The good news is that as of January 1, 2025, tunes published before 1930 are now mostly in the public domain (with some exceptions). So that would include all traditional American folk tunes, but nothing written after 1929. Copyright requirements for music publishing are unbelievably convoluted, with the laws changing about every 20 years, and then there's US or UK laws vs those in other countries. And that's assuming you can even find who currently holds the copyright (the rights get inherited and bought and sold, and there is no simple clearinghouse of information). To avoid the risk of lawsuits and huge fines, you have to have permission to use copyrighted works, and the copyright holder often wants $$$ for that permission. The big music publishing houses typically have a minimum of $200 or so per tune, so for a large tunebook that becomes prohibitive very quickly! The Cowboy Concertina book was a joint effort with cowboy songwriter Pipp Gillette, so that's how we could include his and his late brother's newer cowboy songs along with lots of traditional ones. And as it should be, Pipp gets a substantial share of the royalties every quarter. Now if you just want to play or perform any of these newer post-1930 tunes you are welcome to do that - music performance laws are very different from music publishing laws. Gary Edited January 24 by gcoover 3
Tiposx Posted January 24 Posted January 24 Hi JimR I just looked up that tune “Angel from Montgomery” as I had never heard of it. I found the Bonnie Raitt performance on YT. Wow! Thank you 2
JimR Posted January 24 Posted January 24 8 hours ago, Tiposx said: Hi JimR I just looked up that tune “Angel from Montgomery” as I had never heard of it. I found the Bonnie Raitt performance on YT. Wow! Thank you Bonnie's voice is to good to make the song bad, but even John Prine, who wrote the song, does a good job with it.
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