IS IT REALLY STEALING?
This time around, I want to talk about how I get my ideas, and how Mojo uses influences and ideas from other sources. In the blues, the same lyric ideas, chord progressions, even titles are borrowed by different musicians. Keb Mo uses a BB King line in his song "Perpetual Blues Machine". It's the line; "My mother says she loves me/But she could be jivin', too." This is more common in the blues and jazz world than in other music genres that I've heard. A soloist might even quote a part of someone else's solo or melody in their solo. This isn't looked at as stealing, it's more of a sign of appreciation. It's kind of like saying; "Hey, man, I really dig that line you used, so I'm gonna throw it in my tune, too."
Now, that's not to say if I write a song, and then 10 years down the road, somebody just took the song, note-for-note, that that's alright. It has to do with the tradition of the blues. Many of the interviews and biographies and autobiographies I've read on my favorite blues musicians all say the same thing. The new guy talks to the old pro, and the old pro tells the new guy to take the music "further than where you found it." In other words; go ahead and use the ideas of those who came before you, just make sure to put some of yourself in there as well. Don't do my thing exactly like I did it. Do something new to it. A good example is the work Eric Clapton has done with his last album, Me and Mr. Johnson. On this record, he does a bunch of tunes by the late Robert Johnson, thought by many as the "King of the Delta Blues" and one of Clapton's biggest influences. On this record, it isn't just rehashing old Delta blues tunes with Clapton playing a bottle neck slide and singing. Instead, Eric brought in a group of some of the best musicians around like Jerry Portnoy (former harp player for Muddy Waters as well as a fine solo performer) and Billy Preston (the "Fifth Beatle" and world-famous keyboard player), to name just two. With a full band of two guitars, drums, bass, keys, and harp, they take the old Robert Johnson standards and give them a whole new sound, while still maintaining that old, Delta feel. Clapton is a master at this art of creating new takes on the old material.
A good analogy is how we as human beings first learn to talk. We imitate those around us, and slowly we develop our own speech pattern. It's uniquely our own, but it still has bits and pieces of all those people we have heard in the past and those we are hearing today. Our slang changes not only as the years go by, but as we come into contact with different people. A friend of mine moved was born and raised in Northern Michigan, and when he was in his early 30's, moved to Tennessee. After a year of living in the South, he came back home for a visit with a brand new way of talking, complete with southern drawl and new slang terms.
The same goes for musicians. We soak up all the music we've heard since we were born, storing it up for later use. From all the nursery rhymes we heard, to the songs on "Sesame Street," to the "School House Rock" songs, to the Pop music of our youth, to present day- all that just floating around, waiting to come out. So, one day, that musician is writing a song about waiting for his baby like "a bill on Capitol Hill" or telling some girl he'll be her "Gangster of Love". Some blues writers have turned nursery rhymes into songs; like Buddy Guy doing "Mary Had a Little Lamb," or Rufus Thomas singing about "Mary, Mary, quite contrary" in "Walking the Dog." Some of these things are premeditated, others just come out. Is it stealing? Well, yes and no. It's just drawing on past experience for a lyric idea.
As for the instruments, the same applies. Now, in blues, there's a couple of standard beats used for many of the song forms. There's shuffles, and these are usually referred to by the regional style that they're used in. A Chicago shuffle sounds different from a Texas shuffle. There's a swing beat that is used in a lot of "jump" blues. Different drummers have their own way of doing these beats, and may use the same type of beat in different songs, subtly altering them to fit the mood of the song. Guitarist use a lot of the same patterns for songs as well. Again, there's a Chicago-style pattern used by the likes of Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, and Willie Dixon. There's a Texas sound, a West Coast sound, a Kansas City sound, too. Each player plays these same rhythm patterns in their own way, giving them their own "voice." You know when Eric Clapton is playing a song without anyone telling you who it is on guitar. Same of Stevie Ray, Jimi Hendrix, all the great musicians had their own style of playing that is unique to them, even though they may have played the same songs. This how they moved the song "further."
As for Mojo & the Boogieman, we've done the same thing. We've drawn on all our past musical experiences, and used that to cerate our own sound; Northern Michigan Blues. It's part rock n roll, part blues, part soul, part funk, all mixed together. My lyrics are a combination of original ideas and phrases and melodies I have borrowed as well. In our song "Angle Blues" from our first disc, I patterned the lyric after BB King's "Sweet Little Angle." BB's goes,
"I've got a sweet little angle
I love the way she spreads her wings
When spreads her wings around me
I get joy in everything"
My lyric had the same idea, I just put my own spin on it;
"I love the way she'll squeeze me
In her velvet wings
And when my sweet angle loves me
I think of her and not another thing"
I always liked that lyric from BB, and wanted to do my own thing with it, so I thought up my own version of "Sweet Little Angle" and called it "Angle Blues." Now, the rest of the lyric is totally, 100% mine. It has no resemblance, that I know of, to any other song. I just borrowed that particular idea from BB King.
Another more recent example, is our new tune, "She's So Fine." As I said before, this one wins the award for "Most Musical Accompaniments for One Lyric Idea" for Mojo. The arrangement we've settled on is borrowed from a song we heard by Ronnie Earl, called "My Buddy, Buddy Friends." It was very similar to an earlier version of the song we had done many years ago, but had something our version lacked, so we took that idea and made our own. There's a few stops in ours that the other doesn't have, and of course, the lyrics are totally different.
So, before you go saying, "Well, this song is just a rip-off such n such," remember this; Take a listen to Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love." Then listen to Muddy Waters' "You Need Love." The lyrics are almost word-for-word identical, just Zeppelin put a different music arrangement to it. Stealing? You be the judge.
this just added (2/15/05); Jon informed me that a judge decided what Led Zeppelin did was stealing, and awarded Muddy a fairly big settlement for it. Because the lyrics are nearly identicle in the two songs, it is legally copyright theft. So, maybe that wasn't the best example, but I hope you get the point!
-B
Now, that's not to say if I write a song, and then 10 years down the road, somebody just took the song, note-for-note, that that's alright. It has to do with the tradition of the blues. Many of the interviews and biographies and autobiographies I've read on my favorite blues musicians all say the same thing. The new guy talks to the old pro, and the old pro tells the new guy to take the music "further than where you found it." In other words; go ahead and use the ideas of those who came before you, just make sure to put some of yourself in there as well. Don't do my thing exactly like I did it. Do something new to it. A good example is the work Eric Clapton has done with his last album, Me and Mr. Johnson. On this record, he does a bunch of tunes by the late Robert Johnson, thought by many as the "King of the Delta Blues" and one of Clapton's biggest influences. On this record, it isn't just rehashing old Delta blues tunes with Clapton playing a bottle neck slide and singing. Instead, Eric brought in a group of some of the best musicians around like Jerry Portnoy (former harp player for Muddy Waters as well as a fine solo performer) and Billy Preston (the "Fifth Beatle" and world-famous keyboard player), to name just two. With a full band of two guitars, drums, bass, keys, and harp, they take the old Robert Johnson standards and give them a whole new sound, while still maintaining that old, Delta feel. Clapton is a master at this art of creating new takes on the old material.
A good analogy is how we as human beings first learn to talk. We imitate those around us, and slowly we develop our own speech pattern. It's uniquely our own, but it still has bits and pieces of all those people we have heard in the past and those we are hearing today. Our slang changes not only as the years go by, but as we come into contact with different people. A friend of mine moved was born and raised in Northern Michigan, and when he was in his early 30's, moved to Tennessee. After a year of living in the South, he came back home for a visit with a brand new way of talking, complete with southern drawl and new slang terms.
The same goes for musicians. We soak up all the music we've heard since we were born, storing it up for later use. From all the nursery rhymes we heard, to the songs on "Sesame Street," to the "School House Rock" songs, to the Pop music of our youth, to present day- all that just floating around, waiting to come out. So, one day, that musician is writing a song about waiting for his baby like "a bill on Capitol Hill" or telling some girl he'll be her "Gangster of Love". Some blues writers have turned nursery rhymes into songs; like Buddy Guy doing "Mary Had a Little Lamb," or Rufus Thomas singing about "Mary, Mary, quite contrary" in "Walking the Dog." Some of these things are premeditated, others just come out. Is it stealing? Well, yes and no. It's just drawing on past experience for a lyric idea.
As for the instruments, the same applies. Now, in blues, there's a couple of standard beats used for many of the song forms. There's shuffles, and these are usually referred to by the regional style that they're used in. A Chicago shuffle sounds different from a Texas shuffle. There's a swing beat that is used in a lot of "jump" blues. Different drummers have their own way of doing these beats, and may use the same type of beat in different songs, subtly altering them to fit the mood of the song. Guitarist use a lot of the same patterns for songs as well. Again, there's a Chicago-style pattern used by the likes of Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, and Willie Dixon. There's a Texas sound, a West Coast sound, a Kansas City sound, too. Each player plays these same rhythm patterns in their own way, giving them their own "voice." You know when Eric Clapton is playing a song without anyone telling you who it is on guitar. Same of Stevie Ray, Jimi Hendrix, all the great musicians had their own style of playing that is unique to them, even though they may have played the same songs. This how they moved the song "further."
As for Mojo & the Boogieman, we've done the same thing. We've drawn on all our past musical experiences, and used that to cerate our own sound; Northern Michigan Blues. It's part rock n roll, part blues, part soul, part funk, all mixed together. My lyrics are a combination of original ideas and phrases and melodies I have borrowed as well. In our song "Angle Blues" from our first disc, I patterned the lyric after BB King's "Sweet Little Angle." BB's goes,
"I've got a sweet little angle
I love the way she spreads her wings
When spreads her wings around me
I get joy in everything"
My lyric had the same idea, I just put my own spin on it;
"I love the way she'll squeeze me
In her velvet wings
And when my sweet angle loves me
I think of her and not another thing"
I always liked that lyric from BB, and wanted to do my own thing with it, so I thought up my own version of "Sweet Little Angle" and called it "Angle Blues." Now, the rest of the lyric is totally, 100% mine. It has no resemblance, that I know of, to any other song. I just borrowed that particular idea from BB King.
Another more recent example, is our new tune, "She's So Fine." As I said before, this one wins the award for "Most Musical Accompaniments for One Lyric Idea" for Mojo. The arrangement we've settled on is borrowed from a song we heard by Ronnie Earl, called "My Buddy, Buddy Friends." It was very similar to an earlier version of the song we had done many years ago, but had something our version lacked, so we took that idea and made our own. There's a few stops in ours that the other doesn't have, and of course, the lyrics are totally different.
So, before you go saying, "Well, this song is just a rip-off such n such," remember this; Take a listen to Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love." Then listen to Muddy Waters' "You Need Love." The lyrics are almost word-for-word identical, just Zeppelin put a different music arrangement to it. Stealing? You be the judge.
this just added (2/15/05); Jon informed me that a judge decided what Led Zeppelin did was stealing, and awarded Muddy a fairly big settlement for it. Because the lyrics are nearly identicle in the two songs, it is legally copyright theft. So, maybe that wasn't the best example, but I hope you get the point!
-B
posted by the Boogieman at 12:27 AM
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