Posted by Paul Stamler on 01/10/06 20:15

"Kernix" <jimkernicky@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1136920176.335005.187420@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> The only songs that you could use without any worries are songs labeled
> "Traditional" or songs that have somehow come into the public domain.
>
> Traditionals are songs where no one knows who wrote the originals.
>
> Examples: House of the Risin' Sun, I Know You Rider as done by the
> Grateful Dead, the xmas song Auld Lang Syne, Blue Moon of Kentucky,

Bill Monroe

> Little Sadie (think either the Radiators or Widespread Panic did a
> version), In the Pines (Nirvana & Leadbelly), Amazing Grace, Rock a Bye
> Babie, I'm Henry the 8th I Am,

English music hall, known composer, probably public domain by now

Greensleeves, Watlzing Matilda, Danny
> Boy,

Pop song to traditional tune

SRV's version of Mary Had a Little Lamb, Swanee River, When Johnny
> Comes Marching Home,...
>
> Check various nursery rhymes, and various blues, bluegrass and folk
> tunes and ethic folk songs like Irish traditionals.
>
> Also, I think of lot of Grateful Dead covers were traditionals: Deep
> Elem Blues, C. C. Rider (may be Big Bill Broonzy's though),

Mamie Smith, if my memory serves me correctly

Dark
> Hollow, Cold Rain & Snow, Don't Ease Me In, Going Down The Road (also
> may be Big Bill Broonzy)

Earliest recording by Samantha Bumgarner, 1923, way before Broonzy

, Hey Pocky Way, New Orleans' Aiko Aiko,
> Peggy-O, Samson & Delilah blues classic

Copyright owned by Rev. Gary Davis, who claimed it came to him in a dream.
Andy Cohen remarks that he must have fallen asleep while listening to a
Blind Willie Johnson record, 'cause Johnson recorded the song c. 1927 and
probably wrote it.

, Staggerlee, Sittin' on Top of
> the World

Composed by members of the Mississippi Sheiks, 1920s.

, We bid you Goodnight,

Traditional, but I believe a copyright is owned by members of the Pindar
family including Joseph Spence. Traces back to a Yorkshire hymn, "Sleep On
Beloved", also used as a lowering-down song.

Jack A Roe, See That My Grave is Kept
> Clean

Blind Lemon Jefferson

Along with the sources mentioned earlier -- Harry Fox Agency, BMI, ASCAP,
SESAC, LoC -- it's worth checking out the Traditional Ballad Index:

http://www.csufresno.edu/folklore/BalladIndexTOC.html

and the sheet music files at Duke University and the Lester Levy Collection:

http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/sheetmusic/search.html
http://levysheetmusic.mse.jhu.edu/advancedsearch.html

Peace,
Paul

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