Quote:
Originally Posted by Brother McDuff
organ? that's goofy. clearly a synth, and likely the Moog Slim Phatty that Adrock was endorsing around that time.
in reference to credits, i feel like the bboys treat their sidemen as session players in this regard, pay them a flat rate to jam with them, and then extract varying snippets and build songs around them. so if Mark randomly played a lick in the heat of an improvisation, and they build it into an entire production, then I don't think they owe him songwriting credit. otherwise session players would demand songwriting credits on every song they've ever played on.
much like how Clyde Stubblefield was paid scale to play drums on a session, not collect royalties for the hundreds of times Funky Drummer was sampled throughout history.
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I understand the kind of arrangement you're referring to, like Brian Wilson working with the Wrecking Crew. Brian wrote the songs. So even when Carol Kaye comes up with an awesome bassline that everyone is humming along to, she does not get a writing credit. But she is paid very well for a day's work and is fine with that.
But I feel like Mark's involvement was different. He was a huge part of CYH. And to credit him on other songs but not on that one seems odd to me. You can characterize the organ part as just a lick he played over the beat, but it is the most melodic part of the song. And songs are legally defined by melody and chord progression.
As for Clyde Stubblefield, drums have never been considered songwriting. I'm not saying that that is fair, but it has been the case forever. Although it seems these legal definitions are changing as lawsuits come in and cases are decided. For example the Gaye family suing Pharrell, which I thought was BS, they are two totally different songs that happen to be in a similar style, but are nowhere near being the same song, when you break them down.
I do my own thing now, but when I used to have friends come over to play guitar or bass or sax on a beat (which I would sample pieces of), if it ended up in the final mix, they always received a writing credit. What they were doing was just as much a part of the songwriting as anything else. Beats are very simple in regard to melody and chords, usually, so anyone who has made a contribution in a melodic or harmonic creative way deserves a credit. It's not like Brian Wilson, where the song is already written and he shows it to them, and they are just playing a version of a song he wrote.