Rick Beato on copyright claims

Rick Beato on faux copyright claims.

Quite by accident, my research into the long history of the song "St. James Infirmary," has become entangled with copyright.

Essentially, copyright is meant to reward the creator "for a limited time" before returning the creation to the commons, where others can use it for building the future. That is, nothing (songs, sewing machines ...) is created out of nothing - we all depend upon what went before. And we all build upon the past. There is no unique creation. But ...
Corporations want to protect what brings them money. And so, successfully, they have pressured governments to lengthen copyright restrictions.The more lengthy and restrictive the copyright laws become, the more impoverished do we all become as creators, or even just as listeners/viewers/readers ...
This contemporary notion of monetization has become an infectious illness.
Thanks, Rick, for your post!

Composer of "Dyin' Crapshooter's Blues" - date of death found

One of the few
photos of P.G.

When I began research into the history of "St. James Infirmary," it was obvious that Porter Grainger would become a major character in the book. It wasn't long before I came to the realization that Grainger is one of the great-but-forgotten songwriters of the early 20th century.

He composed or co-composed hundreds of songs, including "Ain't Nobody's Business (If I Do)," "One Hour Mama" and "Dyin' Crapshooter's Blues." He was Bessie Smith's musical director and pianist for years and wrote songs tailored for her. He composed music for Orson Welles'  critically acclaimed, immensely successful 1936 staging of MacBeth - set in Haiti and featuring an all-black cast.

1939 photo of black musicians/composers
in Harlem. (Click on the image to enlarge.)

Until I looked into census records, his birth date was unknown. Not because it was hidden, but because interest in him was so low that nobody had bothered to look.

Still, here he is in a 1939 photograph of major black composers/musicians in Harlem. Jelly Roll Martin, Eubie Blake, Kay Parker, Perry Bradford, James P. Johnson ... Porter Grainger (right of photo, beside Claude Hopkins in the white suit).

Death Certificate for Porter Grainger

Gradually he sank out of sight. He remains in the pantheon of the forgotten. 

It was long thought that, due to dating of copyright renewals in his name, Grainger died in New York between 1951 and 1955. In fact, he died on October 30, 1948. (A genealogy researcher who goes by the name ladylorax recently unearthed the death certificate on ancestry.com.)

When the certificate was completed, his name was entered as "Porter, Granger" (that is, Granger Porter)—hence the difficulty in finding the record. He was living at 1300 Wylie Avenue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was brought to the Passavant Hospital at noon, where he remained for twenty minutes (which suggests he was DOA). Cause of death was written as "Pneumonitis, due to dentures lodged in his trachea." In other words, he choked on his dentures. He was 57 years and 9 days old.

3 Songs about Bob Dylan

I Went Down to St. James Infirmary would never have been written had I not heard Dylan's "Blind Willie McTell" twenty-five years ago.

This caused me to reflect – in a roundabout way – that musicians are sometimes stimulated to write songs about ... Bob Dylan.
Here are three of those songs – two of which ask "What if I was Bob Dylan?"

1. In 2010 the Italian musician, Roberto Tardito, released a song in both Italian ("Se Fossi Dylan") and English ("If I Were Dylan").

Towards the end of "If I Were Dylan" Tardito sings:

I'd have a long story to tell, a hard long story
Of money, women, disillusion
A secret longing to go far away
To walk on distant paths, never trodden before
If I were Dylan I'd not speak any more
I'd not speak any more

Alas, I could find no computer link (including Spotify) for either the Italian or the English recordings. However, about fifteen years ago I bought an mp3 of the song. Blogger does not permit the loading of audio files. But Substack does, and you can find this rarity by travelling to my Substack version of this post. Click here.

2. In 2010 Cade and the Taliesins released the song "If I Was Bob Dylan" on their album The Spiral. Cade and the Taliesins is, again, close to impossible to find information about (although their album is on Spotify). The band is probably from the U.S. and is brainchild of Cade Johnson. Do they still exist? Who is Cade Johnson?

In the opening of "If I Was Bob Dylan," a love song, Cade sings:

If I was Bob Dylan
I would write a new song everyday
If I could be your Bob Dylan
I would speak to you in metaphors always

3. In 2008 Cat Power released "Song to Bobby" on her album Jukebox. In contrast to the above, I suspect all readers know of Cat Power, who has recently toured with her interpretation of Dylan's 1966 Royal Albert Hall concert.

In the opening of "Song to Bobby," Cat Power sings:

I wanna tell you
I've always wanted to tell you
But I never had the chance to say
What I feel in my heart from the beginning til my dying day

There must be other songs of this ilk. Can you send your favourites?

AFTERWORD

Shortly after the release of "If I Were Dylan" ("Se Fossi Dylan") Roberto Tardito was asked "What would you do if you were Dylan?"

Tardito answered (thank you Google's translator for this):

"If I were Dylan, I'd have the credit and attention to allow me to experiment, both in the studio and live, that constantly break the mold. Or rather: I am and feel like a free artist, I'm not under the control of a multinational. I don't care in the slightest what people might like or dislike, I don't try to accommodate anyone. I don't make calculations. Today I'm on this path, nothing prevents me from taking another tomorrow. Of course, if I experiment, it's under the eyes of a few; if Dylan or his colleagues do it it's under the eyes of the world."

Dylan's "Unreleased Masterpiece" and I Went Down to St. James Infirmary

Sometime in June, 2025 YouTube posted an entry devoted to Dylan's song "Blind Willie McTell," which went unreleased for eight years after it was recorded. The song is referred to as "a masterpiece." I am uncomfortable with the bandying about of that word, but . . . sure.
The video is about 50 minutes long, and revelatory for any fan of Dylan's music.

Pam and I encountered this item accidentally. One evening, after supper, we were scanning YouTube options on our TV. The algorithms (I guess it was that) steered us to an entry devoted to the complicated history essential for the evolution of that song.

At one point, early in the video, I turned to Pam and uttered, "That's I Went Down to St. James Infirmary."

Possibly 75% of the research that went into the script of this 50 minute piece came from our book.

This video is a fascinating piece of work, and I recommend it to anyone interested in the development of songs. Interested in old weird Americana. Interested in the junction between songs new and olde. Interested in something both informative and fun.

P and I sure enjoyed it.