Public Domain and Traditional Bluegrass Songs
"Public Domain and Traditional Bluegrass Songs" are songs that are traditional or written before 1923. In some cases the origin of the song may not be clear or it was claimed to have been written by an artist that obviously did not write the song. Remember most traditional country songs and public domain songs were copyrighted between 1923 and 1942. Whoever owned the copyright received royalties on the song. In some cases the performers got royalties, many times they sold their rights to the publisher for a flat recording fee.
In the roaring 1920s the rush to get country/old-time/bluegrass copyrighted songs was on. There was gold in them hills! The rush started in 1923 when fiddlin' John Carson scored the first big country hit with Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane. Ralph Peer copyrighted the song with Carson as the author but it was not written by Carson- it was written by W.S. Hayes in 1871.
When a song was copyrighted it in some cases it became "possession" of the performer that recorded it. Ralph Peer and Okeh records gave the performer a percentage of the royalties, which in many cases amounted to big money. Henry Whitter scored huge royalties on "Wreck of the Old 97" after it was recorded by Vernon Dalhart and became the first country million seller. Whitter didn't write the song and sold his rights. After a prolonged court case the song was credited to David George, who wrote it around 1904.
Most early country performers regarded the songs that they recorded as their songs even though they knew they learned the song from someone else. Clayton McMichen complained in a 1959 interview that those "Nashville boys" took his father's song "Pretty Little Widow" and changed it to "Sugarfoot Rag." McMichen was refering to Hank Garland who scored a hit with the song in 1949 and words were added and it became a hit again for Red Foley. Garland called it a finger execise but it clearly has the same chords and melody of Pretty Little Widow. I believe Garland's "Sugarfoot Rag" to be an original composition, whether it's based on Pretty Little Widow or not.
Other famous songs songs that fit in the country/old-time/bluegrass category include "You Are My Sunshine" which Gov. Jimmie Davis claimed to write. In fact Davis purchased the copyright from Paul Rice of Rice Brothers fame who also didn't write the song. Rice recorded and copyrighted the song which came from an unknown woman in SC. "Tom Dooley" was a huge hit for the Kingston Trio who credited the song back to collector Frank Warner. Warner, a friend of my grandfather's, got the song from Frank Proffitt in NC. Eventually Proffitt began receiving royalties fro a song which he clearly did not right. In fact the song was already recorded by Grayson and Whitter in 1929, a point overlooked by Warner and The Kingston Trio. Tom Dooley is a traditional folk song.
Perhaps County Music's greatest early group was the Carter Family. AC Carter spent years searching the hills for any old song he could record. Sometimes the Carters would change the melody or the chords. Of the 242 different songs they recorded in the 1920s and 1930s only a handful would be called original. Many of their biggest hits which were copyrighted are now free to use because the origin of the song has now been revealed. The Wildwood Flower, Cannonball Blues, Can the Circle Be Unbroken and Worried Man Blues are examples of songs now freely used.
The Morris Brothers claimed to write the popular bluegrass song, Salty Dog. Certainly they arranged it to some extent but not much. The almost identical lyrics and even a similar melody can be found in the 1924 recording of Papa Charlie Jackson.
I will include any song that I feel is traditional or probably is traditional. Also included in this section are songs that were written long ago and the authorship is before 1923. All songs written before 1923 are free to use by our current copyright laws. Because of the Sony Bono Law, this date was frozen for 25 years. Under this Act, additional works made in 1923 or afterwards that were still copyrighted in 1998 will not enter the public domain until 2019- we've got to wait eight more years!
Richard Matteson