It Must Be Jesus/I've Got a Woman

[paul secor]

http://redkelly.blogspot.com/2006/01/jimmy...-pt-ii-sue.html

Scroll down near the bottom of the page & click on the Southern Tones - "It Must Be Jesus".

[JSngry]

Are we starting a thread about Gospel songs that got turned into R&B songs? That could go on for a while...Hank Ballard in particular was known for hanging out with Gospel singers/songwriters and copping tunes, but by no means was he alone.

Nifty site, btw, thanks for the heads up!

[Chuck Nessa]

Many thanks.

[six string]

Wow! That was great. Thanks.

[Chuck Nessa]

Ray copied the voice too.

[Shawn]

Wow! That's an eye-opener...and HIP!

[paul secor]

Are we starting a thread about Gospel songs that got turned into R&B songs? That could go on for a while...Hank Ballard in particular was known for hanging out with Gospel singers/songwriters and copping tunes, but by no means was he alone.

Nifty site, btw, thanks for the heads up!

Hadn't thought about a gospel into r&b thread - could be interesting.

Going the other way - Inez Andrews and the Andrewettes recorded a tune called "Crying of the Israelites", which is Sam Cooke's "Chain Gang" music with gospel lyrics. I'm pretty sure that this was recorded after "Chain Gang" came out, and, interestingly, it's the one song on the album (The Need of Prayer) with no composer or publishing credits listed. Guess Don Robey didn't want to get sued.

[JSngry]

So, uh... this is thievery, isn't it, this Gospel-To-Pop-Claim-The-Songwriting-Credits? Albeit in a different milieu & with different resonances.

I got no intrinsic qualms about thievery, mind you. Alexander Monday is still a hero of mine.

BTW - I give the nod to RC, due to The Don Wilkerson Factor.

[paul secor]

So, uh... this is thievery, isn't it, this Gospel-To-Pop-Claim-The-Songwriting-Credits? Albeit in a different milieu & with different resonances.

I got no intrinsic qualms about thievery, mind you. Alexander Monday is still a hero of mine.

BTW - I give the nod to RC, due to The Don Wilkerson Factor.

Just making the point that things went the other way that time, and that Sam Cooke - believe he owned his publishing before he died & it was sold - had the means to sue Don Robey if he wanted to.

I'm surprised that Don Robey or whoever owned the publishing for "It Must Be Jesus" didn't sue Ray Charles' publishing company. If Robey did own the publishing, he certainly was known to use the courts, in addition to using using less subtle methods, to get what he wanted.

And yeah - Ray Charles stole the tune he used for "I got a Woman". At least that's what I call it when you take something that someone else wrote and claim it as your own.

As for "Crying of the Israelites" - as I say, there is no composer credit listed on the record, so I don't if there was any "thievery" involved. If Sam Cooke was paid for the use of his tune, then there probably wasn't - at least as far as financial compensation goes.

Edited May 29, 2008 by paul secor

[Stereojack]

There's no denying the strong resemblance between these two songs, but is "It Must Be Jesus" an actual original composition? I believe that this song is also known as "There's a Man Going Around Taking Names" (or something like that), and may have folk origins that are not clearly traceable to a specific author. This kind of "thievery" is commonplace in traditional music of many types. Just ask Bob Dylan.

[Don Brown]

Ray Charles "borrowing" a gospel song was nothing new. In 1929 Ellington's Saturday Night Function was clearly lifted from Were You There When They Crucified the Lord.

[paul secor]

There's no denying the strong resemblance between these two songs, but is "It Must Be Jesus" an actual original composition? I believe that this song is also known as "There's a Man Going Around Taking Names" (or something like that), and may have folk origins that are not clearly traceable to a specific author. This kind of "thievery" is commonplace in traditional music of many types. Just ask Bob Dylan.

Good point, Jack. I don't know the traditional source of "It Must Be Jesus" - if there is one. Then there's a whole other thing about who composed a song. W.C. Handy held the copyright on a lot of songs. Whether he composed all of them is another story. Thomas A. Dorsey might fall into that category also.