On Sun, 4 May 2008 09:15:17 -0700 (PDT), thedarkman
wrote:
>And as for the much vaunted Mr Guthrie, when he wrote The Sinking Of
>The Reuben James he might just as well have published a flyer with the
>words and a note "To be sung to the tune of Wildwood Flower". Ditto
>many of his other songs.
Woody Guthrie often didn't know himself where his melodies came from
and was sometimes surprised when one of his compositions was pointed
out to him as being very similar to older folk tunes.
Not that it mattered much. Guthrie himself held copyright laws in
contempt and said of the songs he performed on a radio show he had in
the 1930's:
"This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085,
for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin’ it without our
permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don’t give a
dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote
it, that’s all we wanted to do."
I listened to the midi of Joseph Webster's "I'll Twine 'Mid the
Ringlets" at www.pdmusic.org/webster.html and read the text and there
is absolutely no doubt at all that Websters song is identical to the
song "Wildwood Flower" performed by the Carter Family. I really don't
see how AP Carter could claim it as his own.
Here's an old film clip of the Carter Family singing "Wildwood
Flower." If anybody can spot any difference between this song and
Webster's they have more sensitive ears than me:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewnfWoSQz3o&feature=related
Svenne
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