At 10:57 AM -0600 on 3/25/99, Joe Gracey wrote:
>Let me try to explain my vehemence regarding this subject...
>
>I produced an album with Stevie Ray Vaughn and Lou Ann Barton- two,
>actually, in 1979. Stevie and I parted ways when he went to Epic and I
>handed over every single one of my tapes to his manager. I didn't keep
>dubs or copies or nuthin' because I loved Stevie and I didn't want the
>bad karma of the temptation of a bootleg hanging over me.
>
>Now some dick-weed has bootlegged MY stevie sessions and pressed them
>and is selling them, apparently using a copy of MY mastering that I had
>given to Stevie and the band to approve.
>
>I cannot tell you how angry this makes me. I have no tolerance for this.
>Not only is Stevie's estate being robbed here, but I and the band are
>being screwed as well.
Joe, that really sucks, and I'm behind everything you say. I've got no
use for this sort of thing myself. I have heard that in the case of the
one unreleased album I own, the artist (someone you've known for a long
time, and that should make it pretty obvious) was very frustrated at
the label's decision not to release it and made copies pretty liberally
available. Now, if that's true, hindsight doesn't help him much if he's
changed his mind since then. If that isn't true but some after-the-fact
rationalization cooked up by people in a position to know him down
there, let me know. (And while this isn't any consolation on any sort
of basis, my copy isn't good enough quality to trade to anyone else
anyway.)
It also sounds like someone -- either Stevie or his manager, perhaps --
may have considered the tapes a souvenir at some point, something to be
given as a gift rather than property in which many had not only a
financial but also an emotional stake. It would only be just for that
snake's skin to be turned into boots. <g>
>Trading of concert tapes is a different thing, although as an artist I
>feel that I should have control over whether sub-par performances get
>out. Kimmie and I never sign releases prior to a show, only after we
>view the results, and if anybody were to ask about taping I just say
>"send me a copy of it and we'll talk about it" because in truth, an
>artist deserves and in fact owns the right to all performances. Because
>music or spoken word are ephemeral rather than concrete, there is an
>underlying feeling that they are less "owned" by the artist. This leads
>to all sorts of abuse, ranging from terrible shows passed around to laws
>passed by Congress taking away royalties for commercial use of
>copyrighted music. I view it as a matter of degree and intent- if you
>love somebody enough to want to tape them and trade tapes with other
>fans, great, but give the artist the courtesy of saying yes or no. If
>you are selling the artist's image or work without consent or royalty
>agreements, then you are stealing property.
I do have stuff I would never trade because I know the artist wouldn't
want it to be traded. Obviously, this implies there were folks further
up the chain who weren't so worried about that. I can't be responsible
for them, but I can try to have some ethics myself. Since I don't tape
shows myself (as I told one person offlist, this is pragmatic -- I'm
there to have fun, not to attend to the logistics of hidden recording
equipment), I'm a pretty small fish in a pretty big pond.
But I do want to suggest, and this isn't to contradict a single thing
you say, that there can be a disparity between what the performer and
the fan considers a terrible show. Let's take, purely for the sake of
argument, Kimmie. I've lived in two pretty good music towns, I've been
a fan since '90 ("Angels Get the Blues"). I still didn't see y'all
until last year's Twangfest. Now, I know that isn't from a lack of
trying on your part, but it still worked out that way. Now, that set
was a really fine one, and would have been even without the Magic Feet
of Tom Ekeberg, but even if you folks had thought it was a tough one, I
figure I would have been pretty happy. Now, I don't own a tape of the
set or any of the TF sets (I was counting on the official live tape,
RIP), but again, to bring it back to general terms, if there's someone
whose work I've enjoyed for a long long time and after many years I get
to see them and I end up with the opportunity to have a souvenir of
that moment, I'll want one. Again, I do respect the wishes of folks who
don't want it traded, but for myself? Sure.
Bob
