[78-L] Happy Birthday to You
Taylor Bowie
bowiebks at isomedia.com
Sat Dec 12 12:01:08 PST 2009
I didn't know that...it explains why some old juke box records are grey to
white on one side, and clean on the other.
Taylor
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sean Miller" <smille1 at nycap.rr.com>
To: "'78-L Mail List'" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
Sent: Saturday, December 12, 2009 11:59 AM
Subject: Re: [78-L] Happy Birthday to You
> It may have been intended for jukebox play. Remember, then, no jukeboxes
> could play both sides of a 78, it was one or the other....
>
> Sean
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: 78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com
> [mailto:78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com] On Behalf Of Taylor Bowie
> Sent: Saturday, December 12, 2009 2:54 PM
> To: 78-L Mail List
> Subject: Re: [78-L] Happy Birthday to You
>
> Cary, I've wondered if the thing was really intended for juke box play,
> perhaps in more rural areas...so they backed it with a more pop-ish
> Western
> swing side.
>
> I bought it BECAUSE of the Happy Birthday...and the other side was just a
> nice bonus for me.
>
> Thanks for sending your article as well... a strange story which still has
> no ending.
>
> Taylor
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Cary Ginell" <soundthink at live.com>
> To: <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
> Sent: Saturday, December 12, 2009 11:48 AM
> Subject: Re: [78-L] Happy Birthday to You
>
>
>
> I have this disc. I only got it because the other side is by The
> Wanderers,
> a Dallas-based western swing band. The Nichols side is odd - features the
> venerable birthday song sung and performed in a variety of different
> styles.
>
> It's my belief that it was the earliest recording of "Happy Birthday to
> You." A lawsuit surrounding the copyright of the lyrics was settled around
> that time, establish the Hill Sisters (Patty & Mildred) as the authors of
> the lyrics, although this is a huge sticking point with certain
> researchers.
>
> Here's an article I wrote on the song a few years ago for a copyright
> clearance newsletter.
>
>
>
>
>
> P.D. or Not P.D.? That is the Question
>
> The Happy Birthday Controversy
>
> By Cary
> Ginell
>
>
>
> Have you
> ever wondered why you never hear the song Happy Birthday to You sung in
> restaurants when they bring out the free dessert with the little candle in
> it?
> The reason you don't hear it is that many restaurants do not have a public
> performance license to cover copyrighted compositions.
>
> Copyrighted compositions? Happy
> Birthday To You? The simple tune is easily the best-known song in the
> English-speaking world, sung to everyone from infants celebrating their
> first
> birthday to centenarians; from paupers to presidents. But many people do
> not
> realize that the venerable birthday song is under copyright, and earns
> millions
> of dollars a year for its current publisher, Warner Chappell Music
> Corporation,
> which is owned by Time Warner. However, the song has a tangled history
> that
> has resulted in its present copyright status, a status that is now being
> challenged by a number of musicologists, researchers, and attorneys.
>
> The song's roots go back to two sisters from Kentucky, Mildred
> J. and
> Patty Smith Hill. Patty (1868-1946) was a nursery school and kindergarten
> teacher while her sister Mildred (1859-1916) also started out as a teacher
> but
> changed professions to become a composer, organist, concert pianist, and a
> musical scholar specializing in African-American spirituals. In 1893,
> Mildred
> and Patty wrote a simple song that was to be used by teachers to greet
> their
> students each day. Entitled Good Morning to All, the lyrics went:
>
>
>
> Good
> morning to you,
>
> Good
> morning to you,
>
> Good
> morning, dear children,
>
> Good
> morning to all.
>
>
>
> The song was first published in the
> songbook Song Stories for the Kindergarten in 1893 with the first of
> several revised editions published in 1896. The copyright was renewed in
> 1921.
> In the ensuing decades, the now familiar "happy birthday" lyrics were
> added
> to
> the Good Morning to All melody, although the identity of the originator
> of the words is unknown. The new words became so popular that they finally
> replaced the original lyrics and the Hills' composition became a birthday
> celebration song.
>
> By the early 1930s, the song, now
> known as Happy Birthday to You, was being used as Western
> Union's first singing telegram, and it also appeared in the 1931
> Broadway musical The Band Wagon and Irving Berlin's As Thousands
> Cheer in 1933. This prompted a
> lawsuit by a third Hill sister, Jessica Hill, administering on behalf of
> her
> sister Patty (Mildred had died in 1916). By demonstrating that the
> melodies
> to
> the Hills' Good Morning to All and Happy Birthday to You were
> identical, Jessica was able to secure a copyright for the birthday lyrics
> for
> the family. Thus, Happy Birthday to You was copyrighted in 1935 by the
> Chicago-based Clayton F. Summy Publishing Company. Under the 1909
> Copyright
> Act, the original melody went into the public domain in 1969 but the
> lyrics
> were renewed in 1963, 28 years after their initial copyright. The
> Copyright
> Act
> of 1976 extended the copyright an additional 19 years until 2010 and
> another
>
> 20
> years was tacked on due to the Sonny Bono-sponsored Copyright Term
> Extension
> Act of 1998. In the 1930s, the Clayton Summy Company was purchased by a
> New
> York accountant
> named John F. Sengstack who renamed it Birch Tree Ltd. in the 1970s. In
> 1998,
> Warner Chappell purchased Birch Tree, whose holdings included Happy
> Birthday
> to You, for $25 million. Warner Chappell currently reaps an estimated $2
> million in royalties annually from the song. So according to Warner
> Chappell,
> they own the lyrics to Happy Birthday to You until the year 2030.
>
> Or do they?
>
> On March 4, 1924, one Robert H.
> Coleman published a collection of songs entitled Harvest Hymns that
> included the song Good Morning to You, which featured the Happy
> Birthday to You lyrics in the second stanza. The melody was identical to
> the one the Hills wrote in 1893, however, there is no credit listed for
> either
> the words or the music, nor is there any copyright notice listed
> (Recently,
> a
> version of the song published in 1915 has come to light with similar
> details.).
>
>
> It is the contention of some researchers, most
> notably one Bob Katzmarek of Katzmarek Publishing, that the 1935 copyright
> for Happy
> Birthday to You is invalid (he offers "proof" of this for a $35.00 fee.).
> Katzmarek's claim is based on the Coleman collection and a section of the
> 1909
> Copyright Act that states that any song that has been published without a
> stated author or copyright notice becomes public domain. Since no notice
> was
> included in Coleman's publication, this renders Jessica Hill's 1935
> copyright
> of Happy Birthday to You invalid as an original composition.
>
> Despite this evidence, Warner Chappell continues to
> license Happy Birthday to You and threatens litigation if the proper
> fees are not paid, asserting that the copyright that they own for the song
> is
> legal and valid until 2030. To date, no lawsuits challenging either Warner
> Chappell's ownership of the song or the validity of the 1935 copyright
> have
> been filed.
>
> This creates a dilemma for anyone considering using
> the song in a commercial venture. Although the melody is without a doubt
> in
> the
> public domain, its copyright having expired in 1969, the status of the
> lyrics
> is still in question. If it is established that Warner Chappell's
> copyright
> is
> invalid, what happens to the millions of dollars Summy, Birch Tree, and
> Warner
> Chappell received on the song since 1935? Can those who paid for licenses
> sue
> for recovery? It will take a major court case to find out, but one thing
> is
> for
> sure: Warner Chappell will not blow out the candles on their copyright
> without
> a fight.
>
>
>
>> Date: Sat, 12 Dec 2009 12:52:07 -0500
>> From: dlennick at sympatico.ca
>> To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
>> Subject: Re: [78-L] Happy Birthday to You
>>
>> Yippee for discographies with title indexes! I've certainly never heard
>> of
>
>> this
>> band..Ray Nichols & His Four Towers Orchestra, BB 5921.
>>
>> dl
>>
>> Taylor Bowie wrote:
>> > Julian's post reminded me of a very cool record I have of Happy
>> > Birthday to
>> > You on a Buff Bluebird, from 1934 or 35.
>> >
>> > Can't recall the band but it's either one of the studio groups
>> > (Berwick,
>> > Peltyn) or some minor group, and they play several choruses of the
>> > damn
>> > thing in almost every tempo you could think of...waltz, tango, fox
>> > trot,
>> > march, rumba...great record! Little bit of actual jazz on it, too.
>> >
>> > Can anyone remind me who the artist is? I'd like to dig it out and
>> > play
>
>> > it
>> > and am so backwards that I just have my records alphabetical, not on a
>> > computer list.
>> >
>> > Taylor
>> >
>> >
>> > ----- Original Message -----
>> > From: "Julian Vein" <julianvein at blueyonder.co.uk>
>> > To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
>> > Sent: Saturday, December 12, 2009 3:07 AM
>> > Subject: Re: [78-L] The Christmas Songs
>> >
>> >
>> >> Bud Black wrote:
>> >>> In 1947 Dick Todd with Mark Warnow's orchestra and chorus, recorded
>> >>> "All
>> >>> Around The Christmas Tree," on the Sonora label I remember thinking
>> >>> at
>> >>> the
>> >>> time that this song would become a Christmas classic heard every
>> >>> year.
>> >>> Boy,
>> >>> was I wrong! The record was played extensively on the radio, but by
>> >>> the
>> >>> following year it had almost faded into obscurity. All in all.....I
>> >>> kinda
>> >>> liked it!
>> >>>
>> >>> Bud
>> >> =============
>> >> Oddly enough, Warnow's brother Raymond Scott recorded it in 1940. It
>> >> didn't make much of an impression on me. It was recorded November 29,
>> >> which would have made it tight for good sales before Xmas. The reverse
>> >> "Happy Birthday To You", however, could've sold at any time.
>> >>
>> >> Julian Vein
>> >>
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