[78-L] Happy Birthday to You
Cary Ginell
soundthink at live.com
Sat Dec 12 14:31:14 PST 2009
I doubt this was issued as a juke box record. The Wanderers only released 9 sides from what turned out to be their only session (1/28/35), so SOMETHING had to be an odd side. Maybe back then they just paired odd sides together. As someone once purportedly told Sigmund Freud, "Siggy, sometimes a cigar is only a cigar."
Cary Ginell
> From: bowiebks at isomedia.com
> To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
> Date: Sat, 12 Dec 2009 11:53:59 -0800
> 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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>
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