>Part of learning about country music is learning where songs come from, and
>my sense is that that's true with various kinds of roots music - blues,
>Cajun and so forth, but I guess it's not so big a thing across the board.
>
>Jon Weisberger Kenton County, KY [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>http://home.fuse.net/jonweisberger/
>
>Exactly, except I think we can go further and say that many critics today
are just plain lazy and do not research the source and/or their
workload is so considerable that they do not have the time. I would rather
read no songwriting credit at all than to be given an erroneous one. When I
read a review or liner notes for that matter, I want to believe that the
credits listed are, in fact truthful. Further, I believe that an artists
success depends just as much upon the song/songwriter as it does upon the
artists interpretation as well as all of those engineers, musicians and
various production people lurking in the background.
Why shouldn't they be given accurate mention?
What frequently bothers me is when a catalog is purchased by a recording
company, transferred from ep to cd and distributed without
so much as a nod to the songwriter. For instance, over the past few years I
have been trying to replace my worn-out but beloved albums with cd's. In
some instances, replacing the original song-for-song album is impossible;
however in the case of "The Greatest Hits of..."
or "The Best Of..." I frequently notice a lack of songwriting credits. For
the younger generation who has never heard of a particular artist before but
possibly has been curious enough to explore someone they've read about who
has been an influence on a current "stars" career (or whatever else may
stimulate their interest), I believe negating the songwriting credits or
providing "false" credit is a disservice to the heritage of any musical
form.
Music is more than just the artist or his/her image. I f we wish to
preserve our rich musical heritage, then I say we should accurately provide
credit where credit is definitely due.
Tera
>
