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Topic: Johnny Cash ripped off Folsom Prison Blues |
Bill McCloskey
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Posted 30 Dec 2013 7:46 am |
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| I was unhappy to learn the extent that Johnny Cash "borrowed" from another song to write Folsom Prison Blues. I don't think I've ever encountered such a bold theft in music before . The original song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3M3Igjnbhs |
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Doug Beaumier
From:
Northampton, MA
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Joachim Kettner
From:
Germany
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Posted 30 Dec 2013 8:52 am
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Oh at least he put the boom- chick-a- boom in the rhythm.
_________________
Fender Kingman, Sierra Crown D-10, Evans Amplifier, Soup Cube. |
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Lane Gray
From:
Topeka, KS
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Posted 30 Dec 2013 9:07 am
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The melody is SIMILAR, but fer heaven's sake, there's only five blues songs.
And Johnny didn't climb up to the b7 before the IV chord.
It's likely that Johnny heard this and made up his own after, but if the authors of this had tried to sue, I'd wager they'd have lost. There's a difference between inspiration and plagiarism.
_________________
2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects |
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Jack Stoner
From:
Kansas City, MO
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Posted 30 Dec 2013 9:10 am
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| I worked with Tommy Cash (his younger brother) for 7 years. He did that song in F. He said that is the Key that Johnny did it in. |
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Dave Mudgett
From:
Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee
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Pete Finney
From:
Nashville Tn.
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Posted 30 Dec 2013 9:18 am
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| Lane Gray wrote: |
| if the authors of this had tried to sue, I'd wager they'd have lost. There's a difference between inspiration and plagiarism. |
They did sue, and they won. Cash paid a significant amount to settle.
They didn't bother to sue the first time it was a hit for Cash in the 50s, but they did after it (and the album named after it) was a huge hit in 1968. |
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Lane Gray
From:
Topeka, KS
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Posted 30 Dec 2013 9:27 am
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Darn. Not the first wager I would have lost.
Weaker cases have won, and stronger cases have lost.
But if he settled, that's not the same as losing.
_________________
2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects
Last edited by Lane Gray on 30 Dec 2013 9:31 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Bill McCloskey
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Posted 30 Dec 2013 9:30 am
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Not only is the tune the same, half the lyrics are the same.
Cash ended up paying $75,000 to the original artist. |
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Bill McCloskey
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Posted 30 Dec 2013 9:33 am
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Here are the orginal lyrics from Crescent City Blues. A lot more than a similar melody was going on here:
I hear the train a-comin, it's rolling 'round the bend
And I ain't been kissed lord since I don't know when
The boys in Crescent City don't seem to know I'm here
That lonesome whistle seems to tell me, Sue, disappear
When I was just a baby my mama told me, Sue,
When you're grown up I want that you should go and see and do
But I'm stuck in Crescent City just watching life mosey by
When I hear that whistle blowing, I hang my head and cry
I see the rich folks eating in that fancy dining car
They're probably having pheasant breast and eastern caviar
Now I ain't crying envy and I ain't crying me
It's just that they get to see things that I've never seen
If I owned that lonesome whistle, if that railroad train was mine
I bet I'd find a man a little farther down the line
Far from Crescent City is where I'd like to stay
And I'd let that lonesome whistle blow my blues away |
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Doug Beaumier
From:
Northampton, MA
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LJ Eiffert
From:
California, USA
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Posted 30 Dec 2013 12:12 pm
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Well seems like the authority to bind a accurate & complete allowances to steal once work of art is in the same as a band from New Orleans and that would be " The Tokens " with, The Lion Sleeps tonight. With the lump sum of a giving rights to acknowledge a life time career in the Music Business Industry is only fair by the paper works of your pink slip of the true date you own the rights of I paid for the steal because you don't have enough money to take be to court to get it back. That's how the real big Business heads of corp. world works. Could you please give me my Bill-Back money! So the legal responsibility for yourself is to make sure you know who you are working with in the invoice payments.This is a temporary hope you understand what I said.  Uncle Leo J.Eiffert,Jr. with his PIGEONS & or CRAWFISH Band.  |
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Richard Sinkler
From:
aka: Rusty Strings -- Missoula, Montana
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Posted 30 Dec 2013 12:18 pm
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I never liked Folsom Prison Blues anyway. Come to think of it, I didn't care much for anything Johnny Cash did. 
_________________
Carter D10 8p/8k, Dekley S10 3p/4k C6 setup,Regal RD40 Dobro, Recording King Professional Dobro, NV400, NV112,Ibanez Gio guitar, Epiphone SG Special (open D slide guitar) . Playing for 54 years and still counting. |
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Bill McCloskey
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Posted 30 Dec 2013 12:38 pm
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LJ,
sorry. I'm not really sure I understand what you are saying. |
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Leslie Ehrlich
From:
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
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Posted 30 Dec 2013 3:23 pm
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| Joachim Kettner wrote: |
| Oh at least he put the boom- chick-a- boom in the rhythm. |
I don't know where descriptor 'boom-chick-a-boom' comes from, but the first words I heard to describe that style of rhythm playing were 'tick-tock'. And I believe the tick-tock style of rhythm guitar was used in place of drums in country bands that didn't have a drummer (e.g. Hank Williams's group - listen to the song 'Honky Tonkin').
_________________
Sho-Bud Pro III + Marshall JMP 2204 half stack = good grind! |
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Greg Cutshaw
From:
Corry, PA, USA
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Posted 30 Dec 2013 3:37 pm
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This is not a rare case. The Arthur Q Smith story is another interesting case of people claiming other's songs as their own after "buying" them for $5 to $25. I wouldn't have a problem with this if Q's songs weren't such big hits and made a lot of fame and $$$ for everyone but himself. Listen to Be Careful Who You Love (Arthur's Song) (sung) by Marty Stuart.
Greg |
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Andy Volk
From:
Boston, MA
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Posted 30 Dec 2013 5:32 pm
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George Harrison paid a a bundle for "unconscious plagiarism" to the composer of He's So Fine for My Sweet Lord's Similarity. There's a lot of monkey business in the entertainment world.
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Steel Guitar Books! Website: www.volkmediabooks.com |
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Alvin Blaine
From:
Picture Rocks, Arizona, USA
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Joachim Kettner
From:
Germany
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Posted 31 Dec 2013 7:28 am
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Leslie wrote:
| Quote: |
| I don't know where descriptor 'boom-chick-a-boom' comes from, but the first words I heard to describe that style of rhythm playing were 'tick-tock' |
There's an album with this as a title
_________________
Fender Kingman, Sierra Crown D-10, Evans Amplifier, Soup Cube. |
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Gene Jones
From:
Oklahoma City, OK USA, (deceased)
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Posted 31 Dec 2013 9:57 am
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I have never been a Johnny Cash fan except for once when he was appearing at Springlake Park in Oklahoma City, where he took a developmentally disabled little girl from the audience and sat with her on the floor of the stage and sang a song especially to her.
Since then, I have given Johnny Cash a pass for many of his subsequent problems.
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"FROM THEN TIL' NOW" |
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LJ Eiffert
From:
California, USA
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Posted 31 Dec 2013 10:18 am
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| Hey Bill McCloskey! What I said was this ( stolen) same thing happen to us kids from New Orleans by others who ran the neighborhood Music Business world and you can't fight it to get back what they take from you if you don't have the MONEY to do so. So,the big world as people call them BIG Brother dose this to us all day long.But, just remember who used who to get what they got. Read between the lines of what's not there and you might understand what I'm saying. God Bless the world of music because we need it. LJ |
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Alan Brookes
From:
Brummy living in Southern California
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Posted 31 Dec 2013 11:12 am
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Evidently Johnny told Sam Phillips that it was a Gordon Jenkins song that he'd changed the words round a bit, and Sam Phillips decided not to give Jenkins any credit on the label. That was Phillips' fault, not Cash's. They did end up paying Jenkins $75,000 in royalties, and that's a lot more than he would earned from the number if it had stayed as an insignificant 40s blues and Johnny Cash hadn't recorded it and made it a rockabilly hit.
Record producers often did that sort of thing. Norman Petty insisted that he be given credits on all of Buddy Holly's compositions. If you're an up-and-coming singer you have little option but to just put up with it.
Last edited by Alan Brookes on 25 Feb 2014 3:33 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Ben Elder
From:
La Crescenta, California, USA
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Posted 1 Jan 2014 7:11 pm Joy To The World; 33 Percent to Me
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To illustrate the phenomenon of "writing" credits: as a young boy, Hoyt Axton sat in the kitchen as his mother, Mae Boren Axton and her writing partner Tommy Durden composed "Heartbreak Hotel" based on a newspaper clipping that spoke to Durden. The song was completed pretty much in its entirety in the time it took Hoyt to finish off a peanut-butter sandwich. Elvis Presley (and perhaps more to the point, Col. Tom Parker) agreed to record it, but only if Elvis got one-third writing credit...and all the royalties that would entail. And that's how the writing credits appear.
Fast forward a couple of decades. Hoyt is a famous and well-regarded singer and songwriter in his own right and Three Dog Night has just broken "Joy To The World" out in a huge way. Elvis magnanimously offers to record "Joy To The World" for the same "Heartbreak Hotel" terms.
Hoyt's basic reply was was, euphemising probably a lot, was "Fine then--DON'T record it. You're not getting 33%."
(Elvis later recorded it anyway with no writing credit.)
(And if there were any justice for songwriters, Willie Dixon would have received hundreds of millions of dollars of wealth that flowed to Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones and countless others.)
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"Gopher, Everett?" |
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Glen Derksen
From:
Alberta, Canada
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Posted 1 Jan 2014 11:12 pm
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| What's done was done. Why don't we just enjoy the song? |
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Russ Wever
From:
Kansas City
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