A Question of "Money"

It's no secret that '50s and '60s rhythm and blues artists were often ripped off by white record company owners, as well as by club owners, deejays, managers, and various other non-musicians making a profit from the music business. Unfortunately, black ownership of the means of production was not always a remedy for these abuses. Berry Gordy, Jr., was the owner of Motown, the most successful of the black-owned labels. From all that we know about how Gordy treated his artists, he is deserving of the title of “honorary white man.”

One way to cheat musicians was through manipulation of song copyrights. While musicians often wrote their songs, record executives sometimes required musicians to sign over part or all of the copyright to the songs to them or their cronies as a condition of allowing them to record. Barrett Strong, who recorded the 1959 R&B classic “Money (That's What I Want),”—ironically, a musical endorsement of materialism—is suing to have his name reinstated as one of the authors of the song. Mr. Gordy disputes his claims of authorship.

Barrett Strong claims that while working as a session musician for Motown, he developed the tune—a spinoff of one of the riffs in Ray Charles' “What'd I Say?”—and the lyric hook. A studio musician and a recording engineer confirm Strong's claim of authorship. Gordy liked the song and assigned staff writer Janie Bradford to help him with the lyrics. The copyright registration, filed in 1959, lists Strong, Bradford and Gordy as co-authors. The song was released went to #2 on the R&B charts in 1960 and also crossed over to the pop charts. It was one of Motown's first hits.

In 1962, Motown instructed the copyright office to remove Strong's name from the song, claiming that he was “erroneously listed” as a co-author. Under the law, he had three years to contest the change, but there was an important Catch-22. The copyright office has no obligation to inform authors of such changes, and he did not know about it.

There are some additional twists and turns to the story. For example, when the copyright was renewed in 1987, Strong's name was restored, but then removed the following year. (He didn't know about those changes either.)

The song has made a pile of what Mr. Strong wanted. It was covered by other artists, including the Beatles; it appeared on film soundtracks, in a Broadway play, and in television commercials. Strong was a one-hit wonder, retired from the music business, and spent most of his life working in an auto plant. In 2009, he suffered a stroke. Now 72, he lives in a retirement home and is unable to pay his rent or medical bills. He says he also wants to set the record straight and receive proper credit for his composition.

Legal experts say he has little chance of success due to the statute of limitations. If this story were to receive more publicity, I suppose there's always a chance that the multimillionaire Berry Gordy, Jr., could be publicly embarrassed into doing the right thing.

Video of the Week #29

Lonnie Johnson was a blues singer and guitarist whose career spanned the years 1925 through the mid-'60s. Although born in New Orleans, his finger picking style was more typical of the Piedmont area of the Carolinas and Virginia. In addition to the blues, he played jazz guitar duets with Eddie Lang and recorded with Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. He had a #1 rhythm and blues hit, "Tomorrow Night," in 1948. Here he is doing "Another Night to Cry" in 1963, introduced by Sonny Boy Williamson #2, and accompanied by Otis Spann, piano; Willie Dixon, bass; and Bill Stepney, drums.

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Video of the Week #24 (Skip James)

Video of the Week #19 (Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee)

The Soundies #6 (Big Bill Broonzy)

Video of the Week #28

The Clovers sing "Fool, Fool, Fool." Although this record was #1 on the R&B charts in 1951 with Buddy Bailey singing the lead, this version was recorded in 1954, while Bailey was in the Army. His replacement Billy Mitchell sings lead. The others members are Matthew McQuater, tenor; Harold Lucas, baritone; Harold Winley, bass; and Bill Harris, guitar.

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The Soundies #15 (The Mills Brothers)

The Soundies #7 (The Delta Rhythm Boys)

The Sight of Music

Which is more important you are evaluating the quality of a piece of music, the sound of the music, or the visual information you obtain from watching the performance? If you're like most people, you say the sound. In a new study by Chia-Jung Tsay, 83.3% of participants said the sound mattered more. But maybe we're mistaken.

In a series of studies, participants were presented with six-second clips of the three finalists from prestigious classical music competitions and asked to guess the winner. Some were given sound only, others video only, and the rest both sound and video. Both novices and expert participants (professional musicians) showed the same results. When given the video only clip, from 46% to 52% of them correctly identified the winner, which was significantly better than chance (33%, since there were three contestants). Those given sound only performed worse than chance, while those given both sound and video performed at about chance level. Thus, not only was sound of the music not helpful in predicting the winner, it's inclusion on the sound plus video clip distracted the participants from the visual information that was more useful in predicting the winer.

Two of Tsay's studies may help identify the mechanisms responsible for the effect. In one of them, participants were shown silent videos of black-and-white moving outlines of the performers. They also predicted the winners at better than chance. This suggests that participants are using movement and gestural information to evaluate performance, rather than static information such as race, gender and physical attractiveness, which were not visible on these clips.

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In another study, participants were given either sound-only or video-only recordings and asked to choose the performers who were most confident, creative, involved, motivated, passionate and unique. In the video condition, the performer chosen as the most passionate was the winner 60% of the time. This was true, but to a lesser extent, in the audio condition as well. Those chosen as most creative, involved, motivated and unique in the video condition were also more likely to have won. Only confidence didn't help to identify the best performer.

These results remind me of a social-psychological study by Ambady and Rosenthal in which participants were shown brief video clips of college teachers lecturing without sound. Participants' evaluations of the instructors from these “thin slices” of behavior closely matched evaluations from the students in their classes at the end of the semester. Short observations of therapists in action also predict patient outcomes in psychotherapy.  Such studies show that nonverbal cues are important sources of accurate information in impression formation.

Tsay's results suggest that when we watch a musical performance, visual cues overwhelm auditory cues. We judge musical performance by watching cues such as posture, gesture and movement, especially when they are interpreted as indicators of passion. Both expert and novice judges were surprised by these results, which suggest that we are less affected by “content,” i.e., musical notes or a professor's words, and more by self-presentational style than we think.

These results have several limitations. Since the performers were contest finalists, there may not have been large differences in sound quality for the observers to detect. They were obtained with classical music performances, and it's not clear whether they would generalize to popular music or other genres. Of course, you might argue that the visual mode is even more important in popular music. The clips were unusually short, although from another perspective, the accuracy that was obtained with such short selections makes the results even more impressive. Although one of Tsay's studies suggests that physical attractiveness information is not necessary to produce accurate judgments, the studies do not rule it out as an influence, especially in popular music, where we have reason to think it's important.

The studies imply that the original judges in these competitions were heavily influenced by visual information, even though this was almost certainly not their intention. If we want to judge musical performance primarily by sound, the data suggest that we avoid music videos and live performances, since our evaluations are likely to be contaminated by what we probably consider irrelevant information. Of course, that would remove some of the enjoyment from the experience, which may be the whole point.

Video of the Week #27

This is the Cannonball Adderley Quintet--Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, alto sax; Nat Adderley, trumpet; Joe Zawinul, piano, Sam Jones, bass; and Louis Hayes, drums--supplemented by Yusuf Lateef on tenor sax and flute, playing "Jive Samba" on European TV in 1963.

Living Blues Poll: Critics vs. Fans

The 20^th Annual Living Blues Critics' and Readers' Polls were published in the August issue. Although I start to get bored with all these awards at this time of year, these two polls allow us to compare the opinions of the average person with the professionals. Unfortunately, readers are asked to vote in fewer categories. In October, the Down Beat Readers' Poll will be released and we'll be able to make a similar comparison among jazz musicians. (Here are the Critics' Poll results.)

	Critics	Readers
Blues Artist of the Year (Male)	Lurrie Bell	Buddy Guy
Blues Artist of the Year (Female)	Ruthie Foster	Janiva Magness
Most Outstanding Blues Singer	Bobby “Blue” Bland	Buddy Guy
Most Outstanding Musician (Guitar)	Lurrie Bell	Robert Cray
Most Outstanding Musician (Keyboard)	Ironing Board Sam	Marcia Ball
Most Outstanding Musician (Harmonica)	Billy Boy Arnold	Charlie Musselwhite
Most Outstanding Musician (Horns)	Eddie Shaw
Most Outstanding Musician (Bass)	Bob Stroger
Most Outstanding Musician (Drums)	Kenny Smith
Most Outstanding Musician (Other)	Dom Flemons—Banjo
Best Live Performers	Lil' Ed and the Blues Imperials	Lil' Ed and the Blues Imperials
Comeback Artists of the Year	Jewel Brown and Milton Hopkins
Artist Deserving More Attention	Blind Boy Paxton
Best Blues Album (New Release)	Mud Morganfield—Son of the Seventh Son	Buddy Guy—Live at Legends
Best Blues Album (Historical Recording)		Albert King—I'll Play the Blues For You
Best Blues DVD		Muddy Waters/Rolling Stones—Checkerboard Lounge Live, Chicago 1981
Best Blues Book	Ben Sandmel—Ernie K. Doe: The Emperor of New Orleans	Buddy Guy/David Ritz—When I Left Home
Contemporary Blues Album	Joe Louis Walker--Hellfire
Southern Soul Album	Barbara Carr—Keep the Fire Burning
Traditional and Acoustic Album	Carolina Chocolate Drops—Leaving Eden
Best Debut Album	Heritage Blues Orchestra—And Still I Rise
Historical Pre-War	VA—The Return of the Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of
Historical Post-War	VA—Plug It In, Turn It Up: A History of Electric Blues

With the exception of Bobby Bland, who probably died just as the critics were casting their ballots, the critics tend to reward performers currently at the top of their game, while the readers reward past performance—or, in other words, folks who are more well known. Lurrie Bell is held in high esteem by the critics, while the readers prefer Buddy Guy and Robert Cray. Billy Boy Arnold has had a terrific last couple of years. Charlie Musselwhite has been less active, although he is rebounding strongly in 2013.

However, these blues critics are not out of touch with the average fan. They chose Joe Louis Walker's Hellfire as the Contemporary Blues Album of the Year. It was also the #1 album of 2012 as measured by the Living Blues survey of radio playlists. It's unfortunate that Walker didn't make more headway in the singer and guitarist categories.

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Different Strokes

Video of the Week #26

Here's Howlin' Wolf from a 1966 after hours session. "How Many More Years" features a short lecture on the blues and some great harmonica. Hubert Sumlin can be seen playing guitar in the background.

"Down in the Bottom," from the same session, has Wolf playing slide guitar. That's Eddie Shaw on tenor sax.

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Video of the Week #17 (Sonny Boy Williamson #2)