Members FloridaFrailer Posted July 4, 2017 Members Share Posted July 4, 2017 More than once now, I've been contracted to play "all original" music. At first, excitement, then realization that the venue is simply trying to avoid paying the license for live performers. Oh well, you know how it is, if you're in certain areas, any chance you get to play originals is taken. It is a paid gig, so that is good. But here's my thing.... first, I always like to throw in known songs every now and then during an original set, as it's a break for my listeners. I have several songwriter friends that I've obtained permission to play a few of their songs during my show, which I love to do... but am always looking for a way to fill up a 4 hour gig. With that said, what public domain songs have you performed/recorded? I am trying to start a list and have a few..... Love Me Do - BeatlesHouse of the Rising SonIt's Alright Baby - ElvisHappy Birthday (just in case... you know)Poor Boy a Long Way from Home - RL Burnside Would like to put together a more definitive list of available tunes. Know any? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Bob Dey Posted July 7, 2017 Members Share Posted July 7, 2017 Public domain songs would have to be copyrighted 1922 or earlier with a few exceptions. http://www.pdinfo.com/pd-song-list/p...ist-best-a.php https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPG_P6j5rOI Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators daddymack Posted July 7, 2017 Moderators Share Posted July 7, 2017 I'm sure Pogo will regale you with his immense list of PD material!The 95 year rule really hampers finding 'usable' PD material [its tough at 75 years!].Any venue that expects you to be able to perform 4 hours of original material as a solo should be avoided. If they're too cheap to pay the PRO licenses, then I would look at their business model as being poorly planned out regarding having live music. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pogo97 Posted July 8, 2017 Members Share Posted July 8, 2017 I'm sure Pogo will regale you with his immense list of PD material! If I must. but pre-1922 is going to be a peculiar setlist. Even I would think it was a little dusty! Many of the WWI songs in this list are truly awful. 1650 The Water Is Wide 1750 Shady Grove 1823 Home Sweet Home 1825 Shenandoah 1834 Annie Laurie 1848 Oh! Susanna 1850 Careless Love 1850 The Spinning Wheel 1851 Old Folks At Home 1852 My Old Kentucky Home 1852 Camptown Races 1854 Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair 1855 Some Folks 1864 Beautiful Dreamer 1864 If You've Only Got a Moustache 1867 The Maple Leaf Forever 1870 The Hallelujah Band 1873 Silver Threads Among the Gold 1874 My Grandfather's Clock 1875 The Spelling Bee 1880 The Kerry Dance 1883 Molly Malone 1884 All Through the Night 1885 The Boy I Love is Up in the Gallery 1899 Hello! Ma Baby 1899 Keep on the Sunny Side 1902 Bill Bailey 1902 Land Of Hope And Glory 1902 In The Good Old Summertime 1902 Under the Double Eagle 1904 Frankie and Johnnie 1905 Wait ‘Till the Sun Shines, Nellie 1908 Shine on, Harvest Moon 1908 Down By The Old Mill Stream 1909 By the Light of the Silvery Moon 1910 When Father Papered the Parlour 1910 Some Of These Days 1911 I Want a Girl Just Like the Girl That Married Dear Old Dad 1911 Alexander's Ragtime Band 1911 The Floral Dance 1912 Waiting for the Robert E Lee 1912 It's a Long Way to Tipperary 1912 Moonlight Bay 1913 Danny Boy 1913 Ballin' the Jack 1913 You Made Me Love You 1914 The Aba Daba Honeymoon 1914 Saint Louis Blues 1914 Sister Susie's Sewing Shirts For Soldiers 1914 Keep The Home Fires Burning 1914 There's a Long Long Trail A-Winding 1914 They Didn't Believe Me 1915 I Ain't Got Nobody 1915 Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag 1916 I Sent My Wife to the Thousand Isles 1916 Keep Right On to the End of the Road 1916 The Laddies Who Fought And Won 1916 Walkin' The Dog 1917 K-K-K-Katy 1917 I'm Always Chasing Rainbows 1917 For Me and My Gal 1917 Darktown Strutters Ball 1917 Oh, What a Lovely War! 1917 Over There 1917 I Didn't Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier 1918 Hello Central Give Me No Man's Land 1918 Oh! How I Hate To Get Up In The Morning 1918 After You've Gone 1918 Somebody Stole My Gal 1919 Let The Rest Of The World Go By 1920 Avalon 1920 Look for the Silver Lining 1920 Ain't We Got Fun 1920 After You Get What You Want, You Don't Want It 1922 Chicago (That Toddlin' Town) 1922 Yes! We Have No Bananas 1922 My Buddy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators daddymack Posted July 8, 2017 Moderators Share Posted July 8, 2017 I bow to your mastery, Pogo-Wan Kenobi! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Shaster Posted July 8, 2017 Members Share Posted July 8, 2017 And.... while I trust pogo97's list, will the venue in question trust anyone's list? What then? I agree with daddymack, that any venue that can't shell out a few bucks for performing rights is probably operating too close to the bone. That's a place you want to get paid before you perform, if you perform there at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members steve mac Posted July 8, 2017 Members Share Posted July 8, 2017 Harry Nielsen did a fab version of " Me and My Girl " Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mikeo Posted July 8, 2017 Members Share Posted July 8, 2017 Love Me Do - Beatles In Europe only not the USA If you have about 2 hours of solid original material, break it up and do 2 shows. I'm not sure who would hang for that time frame and listen to 4 hours of original material. Call in some of your song writer buddy's, and make it happen. Just my 2 cents Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pogo97 Posted July 8, 2017 Members Share Posted July 8, 2017 I'll agree with daddymac and suggest that the venue is either being cheap and cheezy or it's tottering on the brink of extinction. Player beware. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members senorblues Posted July 8, 2017 Members Share Posted July 8, 2017 I ran into the ASCAP issue last year. They refused to pay and one guitar player kept a weekly jam going limited to original material. I, too considered pre-1922 material and decided against it. I've never heard of anyone doing that, have any of you? Anyway, the jam lasted a few months before the owner decided to sell. The problem with rooms like these is that the ASCAP fees assume you fill large rooms and have music every night. I was playing Thursday nights and they didn't have music any other night of the week; the ASCAP fees essentially won't take into account limited use of live music. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators daddymack Posted July 8, 2017 Moderators Share Posted July 8, 2017 I ran into the ASCAP issue last year. They refused to pay and one guitar player kept a weekly jam going limited to original material. I, too considered pre-1922 material and decided against it. I've never heard of anyone doing that, have any of you? Anyway, the jam lasted a few months before the owner decided to sell. The problem with rooms like these is that the ASCAP fees assume you fill large rooms and have music every night. I was playing Thursday nights and they didn't have music any other night of the week; the ASCAP fees essentially won't take into account limited use of live music. which is going to make me wonder why the venue only did music once a week? That makes no sense to me...although, I was at a 'toney' French restaurant Thursday that has a 'jazz band' from 6:30 to 8:30 only on Thursday [my luck, we got there at 6:15]. I was wondering why they di that, because they have a small stage, but only do music once a week? I didn't ask...the service was mediocre, the wine glasses were tiny and the music was uninspiring [actually a duo, who did more blues and Hendrix material than jazz, and they were not that good, and too loud]. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators daddymack Posted July 8, 2017 Moderators Share Posted July 8, 2017 Pogo has done a WWI era show...among other things Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators daddymack Posted July 8, 2017 Moderators Share Posted July 8, 2017 If I must. but pre-1922 is going to be a peculiar setlist. Even I would think it was a little dusty! Many of the WWI songs in this list are truly awful. 1823 Home Sweet Home 1834 Annie Laurie 1848 Oh! Susanna 1851 Old Folks At Home 1852 My Old Kentucky Home 1852 Camptown Races 1854 Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair 1864 Beautiful Dreamer 1873 Silver Threads Among the Gold 1883 Molly Malone 1884 All Through the Night 1899 Hello! Ma Baby 1902 Bill Bailey 1902 In The Good Old Summertime 1904 Frankie and Johnnie 1905 Wait ‘Till the Sun Shines, Nellie 1908 Shine on, Harvest Moon 1908 Down By The Old Mill Stream 1909 By the Light of the Silvery Moon 1911 I Want a Girl Just Like the Girl That Married Dear Old Dad 1911 Alexander's Ragtime Band 1912 Waiting for the Robert E Lee 1912 It's a Long Way to Tipperary 1912 Moonlight Bay 1913 Danny Boy 1913 Ballin' the Jack 1913 You Made Me Love You 1914 Saint Louis Blues 1915 I Ain't Got Nobody 1915 Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag 1917 K-K-K-Katy 1917 I'm Always Chasing Rainbows 1917 For Me and My Gal 1917 Darktown Strutters Ball 1917 Over There 1918 Oh! How I Hate To Get Up In The Morning 1918 After You've Gone 1918 Somebody Stole My Gal 1920 Avalon 1920 Ain't We Got Fun 1920 After You Get What You Want, You Don't Want It 1922 Chicago (That Toddlin' Town) 1922 Yes! We Have No Bananas After cutting out the real quirky stuff, these are all 'classics'...that no one has covered in over 50 years... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members senorblues Posted July 9, 2017 Members Share Posted July 9, 2017 I play a couple songs pre WWII, but this list is beyond the pale. I can't imagine anyone limiting themselves to PD songs .. . even Pogo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators daddymack Posted July 9, 2017 Moderators Share Posted July 9, 2017 I do some songs from the late twenties, and even some pre-1922 blues [aka race music]. But yeah, a hard show to sell, and pretty much anyone who was alive and listening to music in 1922 is dead, or not going out to a club... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pogo97 Posted July 9, 2017 Members Share Posted July 9, 2017 I played yesterday for a woman's 90th birthday. She was born in 1927, so yeah, probably not hitting the clubs. And the songs I played ranged from the 1910s to the 1950s. I have an aunt who's 91. She remembers songs from long before 1926 because, at that time, songs stayed popular for much longer. Recordings and sheet music were luxuries and not replaced every week with something new. Her father and his brother (my grandfather) were carpenters who built cottages on Charleston Lake. They bought a little plot of land as a base camp and the families stayed there all summer. Because there was no electricity she spent many hours listening to old 78s on the wind-up gramophone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pogo97 Posted July 10, 2017 Members Share Posted July 10, 2017 After cutting out the real quirky stuff, these are all 'classics'...that no one has covered in over 50 years... I missed one!! The Spelling Bee by Septimus Winner, from 1875, is very quirky and maybe a bit stuffy. (I can't find an online recording.) But the Three Stooges recorded it as "Swingin' the Alphabet." Surely a crowd pleaser. [video=youtube;usQem53fDH8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usQem53fDH8 Public Domain? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators daddymack Posted July 10, 2017 Moderators Share Posted July 10, 2017 b-i bikki-bi, b-o bo... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nice keetee Posted July 11, 2017 Members Share Posted July 11, 2017 lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members FloridaFrailer Posted July 12, 2017 Author Members Share Posted July 12, 2017 Thanks for the list! I've copied them out and should be able to find a few more to supplement our original sets. We played this gig this Sunday. Only a half dozen or so people, but we got 5's, 10's and 20's from them. We have enough original material to go 4 hours, but I still like to throw in other locals stuff (and brag about how great our songwriter community is!). Also was able to throw in some covers like House of the Rising Sun, Danny Boy and Poor Boy a Long Way From Home. As for it being sketch from the venue side? Sure... it's sketch, but here's the thing, if you play it like you mean it, then you'll win the patrons. In our case, those few tables gave the employees enough good feedback that we'll be back in two weeks for another. The dreamer in me thinks it might be the start of an original music venue, as it's in a fairly affluent area with a wildly popular Annual Songwriters Festival that draws in folks like John Prine, Zac Brown and Dr. John, to name a few. (http://www.30asongwritersfestival.com) Bottom line is, play it like it was your last gig... no matter what. Thanks again, and keep playing.... and writing!!!! m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pogo97 Posted July 12, 2017 Members Share Posted July 12, 2017 slightly off-topic: http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-40560477 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators daddymack Posted July 12, 2017 Moderators Share Posted July 12, 2017 modified old saying: Imitation is the severest form of plagiarism...Williams and Thick would have been better off sampling Gaye and paying for the license. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pogo97 Posted July 12, 2017 Members Share Posted July 12, 2017 http://www.quotationspage.com/search.php3?homesearch=plagiarism&startsearch=Search Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Notes_Norton Posted July 14, 2017 Members Share Posted July 14, 2017 I play a lot to retirement communities here in Florida - because it's a good, stable market. When I started playing that market, it was all standards from "The Great American Songbook". We played Ellington, Basie, Shaw, Miller, Sinatra, Porter, Shaw, Dorsey, and so on. If we tried to sneak in an early Elvis song, there would be someone in our face telling us not to play any of that "rack and roll" here. But because others wanted it, we did anyway. Then that audience started dying out, and the early rockers came of age, so we played a lot of early Baby Boomer music. Which was really weird, because for year Grey Hair meant "Play Glenn Miller or Sinatra to get them on your side. Then playing a Beatles song followed by thinking "What are these OLD people doing listening to OUR music?" Of course a look in the mirror answered that. Our standards dwindled to a few, and once someone even complained saying "Harry James Is Dead!" Now they want Eric Clapton - man we've been in this business a long time. And of course there are usually a few females who don''t want to grow old who want something new-ish like Blurred Lines or Uptown Funk and they will get out on the dance floor, shake their aged booties, while the rest of the audience is bored. But if you don't play for them, you won't get the gig because they get on the entertainment committee. All this is not a complaint, only an observation. I like playing all kinds of music, so whatever they want, I'll play - unless it comes to EDM - I'm not equipped for that, and I can't talk fast enough for Rap. I love a lot of the songs in Pogo's list but they won't cut it anymore. At least around here. More power to you if you can play them, enjoy yourself, and entertain your audience. As far as I'm concerned, ASCAP is out of line here, and live music in a small venue should be exempt. The money doesn't go to the songwriters of the songs you play anyway, but a blanket fund where the people who don't need the money get the most anyway. But I have no influence with the people who make the laws.If I did, there would be a lot of changes made Insights and incites by Notes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Bob Dey Posted July 15, 2017 Members Share Posted July 15, 2017 I find that nursing homes and retirement homes vary in age group. There are some with residents in their 80s up to 100+. They would enjoy a few pre-1922 songs but not too many. I've had requests for some and I've learned a couple. If they're good sing along songs I'm game. I'd rather attempt to do all originals in a bar or restaurant that doesn't wanna pay ASCAP. I could write a few real quick to add to those that I've already written. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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