[78-L] covers

[Steven C. Barr]

see end...
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "DAVID BURNHAM" <burnhamd at rogers.com>
> Michael Biel wrote:
> It's not really a "cover" in the proper sense of the word as it was
> originally defined and still used at the time of that recording.
> Although the word has been bastardized in recent years, it really only
> refers to alternate versions released at the time of the original hit
> version(s).  Something like this done 12 to 15 years after the song was
> a hit is really only another version, not a cover.  By your definition,
> anytime another conductor and orchestra records Beethoven's Fifth
> Symphony it is a cover.
> ~~~~~~
> Was it you or someone else who was taking us to task a few months ago for 
> using the term "cover" at all?  Insisting that it was a racist term since 
> it referred to white versions of black hits.
> I've asked several collectors and musicians since that discussion about 
> the term and none of them had ever heard of it in that context.
> But when it comes to the sensitivity of some folks, I was jumped on 
> several months ago for referring to a common Canadian road hazard as 
> "Black ice".  This person insisted that it's only called that because it's 
> dangerous and that it's a racist term.  She said it should be called 
> "clear ice".  If anyone has ever hit "black ice", they know how 
> appropriate the term is.  I gained a point in the argument though by 
> offering that "White-outs" aren't much fun either.
>
Okeh! From about 1901 through some unknown (to me) year in the 
thirties...record
companies/labels ALL issued versions of the then-current "hit tunes!" Thus, 
these
were NOT "covers"in any logical sense. At some point, once young 
"bobby-soxers"
became "the record buying public," this changed! Buyers not only wanted "new
hit tunes"...they wanted SPECIFIC versions thereof! Whereas back in 1929 of 
record
buyers went looking for any version of their new favourite tune (in general 
available
on ALL labels...?!), by 1936 or so, the new-generation record buyers wanted 
ONLY
the "hit" version thereof! In the earlier era, one couldn't very well pick 
one version of
a hit from the dozen-or-more, and then all all the others "cover 
records"...?!

One incidental result was the development of  "Gold Records," to be awarded 
to
records which sold one million or more copies! A decade earlier, individual 
discs
rarely (if ever?!) sold a million or more...although it is very possible 
that some
individual SONGS did when all their various versions were included...?!

Steven C. Barr