Talk:Lovesick Blues

Lovesick Blues has been listed as one of the Music good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it. Review: December 8, 2014. (Reviewed version).

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A fact from Lovesick Blues appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 14 December 2014 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows: Did you know... that Emmet Miller and Rex Griffin? A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2014/December. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Lovesick Blues.

This review is

transcluded from Talk:Lovesick Blues/GA1

. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Esprit15d (talk · contribs) 16:16, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A quick overview of this article has shown that a lot of dedicated and conscientious editing has gone into it, and for that I commend the editors. These are my comments and suggestions:

• "is a show tune credited to Cliff Friend": I would say "written by". "Credited" is technically correct, but it implies that it could actually have been composed by someone else. See
  WP:ALLEGED
  . I know there was confusion over the rights, but isn't it true that Friend and Mills wrote it? You can just state the facts in the lead, and further reading will cover the legal controversy. Alternately, you could briefly mention that "despite some controversy..." or something like that in the lead.
• "MGM Records released "Lovesick Blues" on February 1949": Give the full date
• "The publication named it the top country & western record of the year": spell out "and"
• "The most popular, Frank Ifield's 1962 version topped the UK Singles Chart.": Comma after "version"
• " in the Tin Pan Alley musical Oh! Ernest [1]": Citations should go after punctuation, so I would normally say move that to the end of the sentence, but a comma can go after Ernest
• " featured on a show": Shouldn't it say "in a show"?
• "released on November 1925.": Give the full date. If you don't have it, say "November of 1925"
• "accompanied by (Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, Eddie Lang, and Leo McConville), collectively known as the Georgia Crackers, Miller": Remove the parentheses and add them around "collectively known as the Georgia Crackers"
• "joining on August 1948.": Whenever you say "on" a date, it has to include the day (eg. on December 1, 2014). Otherwise, you have to say in MONTH of YEAR.
• "Horace Logan,": rm redlink
• "Williams stood pat ": "stood pat" is a
  colloquial
  term that most readers won't understand. Rephrase without using that idiom.
• "Williams combined Griffin's lyrical arrangement [14] with a two-beat honky-tonk track,": Citations go behind punctuation. Move behind the comma or at the end of the sentence
• "Friend's rights during the great depression": Great Depression should be capitalized
• " peaked at number fifteen ": Should be "number 15". I notice you spell out a lot of words. There IS a small school of thought that says you can spell out any number (even if it's above ten) if it is one or two words. Is this your approach? If so, you can keep these (and the other examples in the artle) spelled out.
• "song peaked at eighty-seven": Should be "87"
• "number forty-four": Should be "44".
• " to 'Lovesick Blues'", the review ": Put a period after "Blues".
• The referencing in this article is outstanding, especially for such an old topic. I went to Google Books and checked some of the references, and they look good. I did notice, however, that you didn't include the location in the book citations. Google Books doesn't provide that information (and I won't fail over this issue) but when you get a chance, see if you can hunt those down, since it is technically a part of the citation.
• I think the album label is an acceptable picture under fair use, but it is not an album cover, so the wrong license is used. Instead, use {{Non-free fair use}}, and fill it in accordingly.
• The song sample is too long, as it cannot exceed 10% of the songs running time. The sample has to be reduced to 16 seconds.

Great job so far. I am placing this article on hold until these matters are addressed.--Esprit15d • talk • contribs 17:07, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Done did most of what you suggested. I chose to keep the numbers like they are, for some reason I feel that it's more appropriate to spell'em out. I'll shorten the sample, and I'll probably look into the book locations when available.--GDuwenTell me! 19:41, 2 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Good changes, and let me know when the sample gets corrected. Also, there a are a few more issues:

• "On June 12, 1928, accompanied by Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, Eddie Lang, and Leo McConville), collectively known as the Georgia Crackers. "—This is not a complete sentence and I recommend removing the comma after 1928 and adding a parenthesis there. The one parenthesis doesn't have a partner.
• "Williams persisted,F and"—remove the F (which I'm sure is a typo)
• "The record was rated with 85 points by disc jockeys, 82 by record dealers and 85 by jukebox operators. Between the three, the track scored an overall of 84. "—I've never heard of this practice before (and I believe it might be obsolete), so you might want to start this off this sentence by alluding that these votes were submitted to Billboard or something. As I was reading, I was confused as to what ratings it was referring to, and honestly, I'm still not 100% sure.
• I realize that this is a very old song, and I won't fail you for this, but I just realized that pretty much all the critical reviews are from Billboard, accept from Cashbox. Can you find any from any other sources?
• "Billboard estimated that the single sold close"— Should be "had sold"
• "covers include Slim Whitman"— Should be "covers include versions by Slim Whitman"

I'll keep an eye on this page for when you make the changes.--Esprit15d • talk • contribs 13:40, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yea, that point system is completely obsolete, alright. Since it was published like that back in 49', I decided to merely include it as information. I tried to clarify that the points were votes. With the reviews, I used all the ones I could find. Unfortunately not much more material is available.--GDuwenTell me! 19:40, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I shortened the sample to 14 seconds.--GDuwenTell me! 20:38, 5 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I am going to pass the article, it's really good. HOwever, There are two more things that have to fixed, so promise me you will:

• "Based on votes sent to Billboard, the record was rated with 85 points by disc jockeys, 82 by record dealers and 85 by jukebox operators. Between the three, the track scored an overall of 84. Following its 100-point maximum rating, Billboard regarded the record as "Excellent"": This is still confusing. The part about voting clears things up A LOT, but still it sounds like the song got a 85 rating, then got a 100 rating. I THINK it's saying that it's on a 100-point scale, but that needs to be phrased better.
• "the single hadf sold"—Remove the "f"

Otherwise, great job, and I'm promoting the article.--Esprit15d • talk • contribs 13:59, 8 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The CD for the Alex Chilton live album credits the song to "Horton Vaughn." Presumably meaning songwriter Vaughn Horton, aka George Vaughn Horton. I see there was already some discussion about confusion or controversy re the proper songwriting credit. Anyone have a source that explains why the song would be credited to "Horton Vaughn"? Lafong (talk) 20:20, 28 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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I personally believe it should be added that the streams for the Hank Williams version of this song in 2018 increased by 2452% due to a popular meme including it, while referencing the meme itself (something like a usage in popular culture or commericial performance subsection under the Hank Williams version?). Thoughts? --

Thanks Aleccat. This is all good to know and I'll work on it ASAP unless someone else gets to it first, or perhaps you want to add it? I'm largely responsible for our Yodeling article and I've watched the article views spike to around 5,000 a day due to this kid. He's been added to the yodeling article but I'll use some of this info to add more. Gandydancer (talk) 18:42, 11 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Using Rolling Stone I added some info to the Yodeling article. I'm going to open up a new header here and add basically what I put at the Yodeling article (including the Wikipedia views info - skating on thin ice, I know...), for a start. I certainly would appreciate any feedback...am I over-reacting to this event?, for example. BTW, even the Miller article views spiked, and in my experience clickable names/events don't as a rule get clicked... Thoughts? Gandydancer (talk) 20:09, 11 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Mason has just released a debut solo song - he now has over 800 thousand Spotify listeners. I think he is worthy of his own wiki page - perhaps we should merge the info about him in this page with a new page about him. Greenleader(2) (talk) 18:44, 29 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Have created a draft article for mason - if accepted the redirect needs to be cancelled Greenleader(2) (talk) 19:59, 29 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. I believe he is notable enough for his wiki article. –Wefk423 (talk) 07:52, 30 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

According to author Colin Escott, it was agreed that Mills and Acuff-Rose would share the publishing of Williams' recording. Mills later gained the rest of the rights to the song when he purchased Friend's rights effective June 22, 1951.

but I found this quote

https://www.songfacts.com/facts/hank-williams/lovesick-blues The young singer could only record songs published by Acuff-Rose, so Williams told Fred Rose that he had purchased the rights to "Lovesick Blues" from his drinking companion Rex Griffin. However they weren't his to sell and Acuff-Rose had to deal with a very cross co-writer Cliff Friend who did own the rights. "Fred Rose published it, but I had the copyright," Friend recalled. "When Williams' record hit the market, I flew to Nashville and took all the money, since I was also the publisher."

I added some copyright info which is from US Copyright office, but don't know about the rest Tillywilly17 (talk) 23:02, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

removed According to author Colin Escott, it was agreed that Mills and Acuff-Rose would share the publishing of Williams' recording,^[1] and Mills retained the rest of rights to the song as he had also purchased Friend's rights during the Great Depression.^[2]

fyi

PROOF of Acuff-Rose publication and the settlement Nov 1949-copyrights

Lovesick "blues; by Hank Williams. © Acuff- Rose Publications, Nashville; 21Mar49; EP35095. For voice and piano, with guitar diagrams and chord symbols.

Lovesick blues; words and music by Irving Mills and Cliff Friend, arr. by Hank Williams. © Mills Music, inc., New York; 1Nov49; on changed lyrics & music; EP41741.

ANSWER 1951

Time-Period: 1928-1977 Titles Drawer Label: LOVE'S(V)-LUACard Number: .0138 .0139

1949-41741 arr hwilliams June 22, 1951 cliff friend to Mills Music, inc

1949-R45865 June 22, 1951 cliff friend to Mills Music, inc

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Unsourced tale

Hank’s publishing company Acuff-Rose had little reason to want to push “Lovesick Blues” either. Even though he claimed he had purchased all rights, Hank hadn’t actually written it. He didn’t really know who had. If Acuff-Rose was going to publish this number, they needed more proof. Legally, they would have felt much better dropping “Lovesick Blues” in favor of one of Hank’s own compositions. After all, Acuff- Rose had signed Williams because of his songwriting abilities, and they understandably wanted to publish songs written specifically by him. But Hank did manage to convince them that he owned the rights to “Lovesick Blues,” so Acuff-Rose gave the go-ahead and filed on the song. It was only after “Lovesick Blues” was released and hit the playlists that they discovered the song’s rights were actually owned by a publisher called Mills Music!

The words had been written by Cliff Friend, a vaudeville pianist from Cincinnati. Friend had found inspiration for the song as a flyer stationed at Wright Field during World War One. He watched as lovesick fly-boys hovered over every phrase of every letter received from their sweethearts. The lyrics, along with Friend’s melody, were tweaked by a Russian-born Jewish band leader named Irving Mills. Mills would later write such classic big band songs as “It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing).” The first commercially released recording on “Lovesick Blues” was done by Elsie Clark in 1922. Ukulele Ike also cut it about the same time. Jazz singer Emmett Miller tried the number three years later with the same results as Clark---absolutely no chart action and few sales. During the Depression a few others attempted to score with “Lovesick Blues,” but none of the records took off.

In 1939, Rex Griffin tried a different approach with his version of “Lovesick Blues.” It was Griffin’s country yodeling style that helped the song make its final transition from a bluesy Broadway number to a country and western piece. Yet, it would be another decade before the innovativeness of this change would be fully realized. Like the earlier releases, the Griffin recording failed in every possible way but one---local bands around the South began to play it. One of these local bands had even convinced Hank Williams that the tune was an original. Hank then “purchased” all rights to “Lovesick Blues” for $100. A few weeks after releasing his own recording of it, he realized he had been conned.

Here is a timeline of the copyright records. This where we got all our dates. Of interest are the following:

Possible reason for changing title to "Lovesick Blues"

Aug 1, 1949 For unknown reason, Mills Music files this assignment from 1921

I will be adding to our article

fyi I have more information 1952-present

Possible reason for changing title to Lovesick Blues^[3]

I've got those love-sick blues; words

and music by C. Duffir [of U. S.]

New York, Frank Harding's music

house. [189

© Nov. 2, 1921; 2 c. Jan. 3, 1922;

E 525856 ; Clara Duffir, New Orleans.

'ORIGINAL COPYRIGHT^[3]

Lovesick blues ; words by Irving

Mills, music by Cliff Friend [of

U. S.] (Cover title:— I've got the

love-sick blues) [9089

© Apr. 3, 1922 ; 2 c. Apr. 5, 1922 ;

E 533105; Jack Mills, inc., New York.

Hank Williams/Acuff-Rose publication March 1949

Lovesick "blues; by Hank Williams. © Acuff-

Rose Publications, Nashville; 21Mar49;

EP35095. For voice and piano, with

guitar diagrams and chord symbols.

Renewal of ORIGINAL COPYRIGHT April 1949

LOVESICK BLUES; w Irving Mills, m.

Cliff Friend (A of m)

© 3Apr22, E533105- R45865, 3Apr49,

U.S. Copyright Office Virtual Card Catalog Assignments 1928-1977^[4]

Acuff-Rose assigns March 1949 Hank Williams/Acuff-Rose publication to Mills Music, Inc.^[4]

Assignments - Titles

Time-Period: 1928-1977 TitlesCard Content: There is no OCR data for this Card.

Drawer Label: LOVE'S(V)-LUACard Number: .0141

recorded July 29, 1949

Acuff-Rose to Mills Music, inc

Aug 1, 1949 For unknown reason, Mills Music files this assignment from 1921^[4]

Assignments - Titles Time-Period: 1928-1977 TitlesCard Content: There is no OCR data for this Card. Drawer Label: LOVE'S(V)-LUACard Number: .0141

recorded Aug 1 1949

Oct 17 1921 irving mills, cliff friend,

ray miller to jack mills, inc.

Revised COPYRIGHT pub Nov 1949

Lovesick blues; words and music by

Irving Mills and Cliff Friend, arr. by

Hank Williams. © Mills Music, inc.,

New York; 1Nov49; on changed lyrics &

music; EP41741.

U.S. Copyright Office Virtual Card Catalog Assignments 1928-1977^[4] Time-Period: 1928-1977 Titles Drawer Label: LOVE'S(V)-LUACard Number: .0138 .0139

Revised COPYRIGHT pub Nov 1949 arr hwilliams EP41741^[4]

executed April 8

Registered June 22, 1951

Cliff Friend assigns his interest

to

Mills Music, inc

ORIGINAL COPYRIGHT and Renewal 1922 & 1949 E533105 & R45865^[4]

executed April 8

Registered June 22, 1951

Cliff Friend assigns his interest

to

Mills Music, inc

Tillywilly17 (talk) 20:48, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]