When Guitar Players Don't Get Credit

Baxter and Jonathan dive into when guitar players don't get credit for guitar parts that make a song a song. Should they get equal songwriting credit?

[@MarsGuitarOfficial]

Better to agree on term’s before it becomes an issue;) I always enjoy your commentary!!!

[@LiveToPlayGuitar]

Same thing happened to the mandolin player on Rod Steward’s Maggie May. He was payed something like $27 for the session but it was his original mandolin riff that made that song…I think he tried to sue for writing/royalty rights and lost cause he signed the session contract and was payed for the day…Thanks Guys! 🎸🔊🎶🤘✌️❤️🤟

[@hailmaryrecordings8255]

When I write with others, I credit everyone who is involved in the writing-process. In a band-situation it’s the right thing to do, I think.

[@TurfShifter]

Andy Summers; he deserves way more credit for Every Breath You Take; his guitar made that song and Sting owes him some money...

[@hotrodjones74]

Yeah, maybe. The song is creepy and weird.

[@TheFeelButton]

With the 900 dollars to make Taylor holler you could almost afford a ticket to hear her sing it! Cheers Casino!!

[@teds3242]

missing the old background...

[@michaelbell7541]

What about studio guys who “made” the song? Louis Shelton the opening riff and solo along with Al Casey and Dennis Budimer, or Carol Kaye the bass line for the Beat goes on? And don’t get me started on Steely Dan. Those guitarists got a little recognition but no extra money. Where do you draw the line between sideman and co composer?

[@michaelbell7541]

On last train to Clarksville. Sorry

[@mikedr1549]

Whoa - I haven't been around for a while - the new studio is awesome!!

[@stephenbrennan4178]

Bass player checking out the title of this video 🙄🙄

[@sqlb3rn]

Most bass players are guitar players that switched to bass to join a band cuz can't everyone be a guitar player.

[@user-no1cares]

The stalker’s song, just tell anyone you’re romancing, ‘I’ll be Watching You’.

[@alphadogstudio]

The law, as I understand it, ownership of the copyright belongs the the person, or persons, who created the melody and lyrics. The rest falls under the "arrangement" category.

[@PeterMoore350]

Ha i read the title of the video thinking that you were gonna talk about credit in terms of money 🤣😂🤣😂 Cheers from NZ 😎🎸🤘

[@matthewdeheus3124]

The guitar lick on Bob Seger's Mainstreet always comes to mind when discussing the topic. I think he made less than $200 that day and that was it. Made the song.

[@el0blaino]

Just saw Andy Summers at Ellnora - great soundscapes and funny tales

[@01157ify]

How about the old Monkey song "Last Train To Clarksville"?

[@jaypaulson5181]

Off topic- (which you guys never do…?) I miss the guitars in the background- Just Sayin’…

[@thelorax7704]

I wonder about bands like Steely Dan who regularly used session musicians. The Purdy shuffle...on Home at Last. Did he get more than a days wages? Then there is CCR. Fogerty says he did most of the song writing and producing. ??? Interesting topic.

[@stevecraig7643]

Tim Pierce would be a billionaire if life was fair

[@francispower1418]

California Dreaming by the Mamas and the Papas is an interesting case in point. John Phillips drove wife Michelle Phillips mad one freezing night in their small apartment on the Upper Westside as he wrote it, making it impossible for her to sleep. In the end she gave up, checked out what her husband had written and quietly came up with the killer second verse there and then, words drawn from her own personal experience earlier that day (she had been pretending to pray in St Patrick’s Cathedral whilst trying to stay warm) and securing her writing credits, even though she hadn’t written a word of music and had no personal ownership of the initial conception of the song. But for all that many might argue it was Bud Shank’s flute, sitting there in the middle of the mix, that capitulated it into the stratosphere of all time pop monster classics. I think I’m right in saying he only ever walked away with the session fee. Also, even though John Phillips wrote the riff it was actually performed by Glen Campbell on the record, and again the performer was fully cashed out once the session fee was paid. I don’t think Glen Campbell could or ever did complain, but I feel Bud Shanks was never fully compensated for what he and his flute brought to that humungous hit.

[@ToddTheJoker]

Equilibrium also has Sean Bean in it! pre- Game of Thrones but post Lord of the Rings...preety kewl

[@scotthoward6265]

I’m working thru the Gospel According to Luke; only 1/3 into it; the volume of stuff he played on by the time he was 22 is staggering; but rarely if ever credited; hard to imagine.

[@TribalGuitars]

Vic Flick recued the James Bond theme by redoing what's now that iconic riff. Zakk Wylde rescued Ozzy's "Down to Earth" because it didn't sound like a cohesive Ozzy record and Zakk thought that even with all the work he did it wasn't enough to make him ask for a writing credit. I lke seeing bands that act on a united front. When Motley Crue came out their album without Vince, the credit read, "All songs witten by Motley Crue AS A BAND." Shinedown's contract states that all members get paid equally, specifically so there's no animosity about anyone making mountains of more money, which has split up more than a few bands.

[@thesmellycatjazz]

The session bassist for Patrice Rushen's Remind Me got a songwriting credit for the song because it was such an integral part of the song. The show Metalocalypse had a hilarious episode called Dethsiduals where the bassist and rhythm guitarist find out they aren't get paid as much because they arent getting residuals from songwriting, so they spend the episode trying to write songs for the band. It's a joke, but it captures the sentiment well imo. If you want a cut ofnthe songwriting, you gotta write.

[@BillAltman]

Hank Garland pulled a gun on a record co guy over this!

[@titanuranus]

Les Dudek vs Dickey Betts on the Brothers & Sisters album... details available most anywhere on the innerwebs. Les says he cowrote Jessica with Dickey, and Dickey likes his royalty checks, and there you have it.

[@hotrodjones74]

I feel there are some unwritten rules about this stuff. The lyrics and main chords are to whom I award creative credit. For an important and catchy riff that made the song something special I would add the creator as a credited artist, but listed second. I don't like to be petty about this stuff, especially as garage band rock hero. Haha

[@baileywatts1304]

I'm with the hip hop guys, that when you come up with a part on the record you get the credits. Just because of sampling rights, Nobody wants to be left behind like Bootsy or Clyde.

[@dw7704]

In high school I would write lyrics when I was bored. Most of them were awful (and any evidence of them destroyed, but one of them I showed to a friend who suggested a new last line and I loved it, so I added it in. If I had ever recorded it I would have given him credit, and if it had earned royalties he would have got some. No problem with that. But for most of us the songs we contribute to will be like that song, forgotten, etc. So most of us don’t need to worry about this. However it is fun.

[@erickmo1188]

I agree that session guys should get a spot on the back of the record cover. But…. As a very part time (I’m talkin once in a blue moon) session guy, the cooler part for me is hearing something I’ve played on that helps complete the song. The song itself is the most important thing to me. That said, nothing I’m playing on is making very much of any money. But if it did, I don’t think that it’d be the guitar part that’s selling the song…. It’s the singer/songwriter that’s pulling the listeners in and keepin them coming back.

[@EclecticHillbilly]

In some cases I'd agree with you but in others, it is the instrumental hooks that make the song.

[@ivanrosemusic]

What guitar was played in the Every Breath You Take music video? It has F holes…Gibson hollow body?

[@sqlb3rn]

Everyone in my band gets credit for songs, since everyone writes their own parts. We have never had anyone outside the band contribute anything as far as writing or performing. Visualizers and photos everyone in those crews always get cred.

[@EclecticHillbilly]

If I remember correctly, the guy who played the picolo trumpet on "Penny Lane" said he got 30 pounds for it.

[@tsaniorwig9280]

Pretty sure that pic was Kieth, Johnny, Ron Wood and Not Jeff Beck?

[@MayorMcCheese2000]

This is actually what broke up the happy meal band... Grimace used to write most of the music on his sax but Ron took 90% of the royalties... meanwhile that dudes guitar didn't even have strings on it... glad I avoided that one.

[@dexter_gd3478]

I have been coming to find out that a lot of the bands I like were all using session musicians. I feel cheated with that stuff happening.

[@vincentdoyle6987]

Slash didn’t get a writing credit for his guitar parts on November Rain. Can you imagine that song without those guitar parts.

[@bottomkitchen250]

This new comment section with the members separate from non-members makes me want to be a member. Aside from that, i found this video particularly interesting.

[@mwrable]

What’s with everyone using the MTV logo. I’ve seen others do the same thing. Strange.

[@7dogg]

Well now there’s a case for guitar writers strike

[@ashleyspeake3168]

Jagger pretty much writes the lyrics, Richards writes the riffs. And they share credits

[@francispower1418]

Er… not quite. Kieth Richards hands off those riffs already bundled with an idea as to what they are trying to say and, crucially, often one phrase of words that sit with one phrase of music which together encapsulates that message. That’s actually 90% of any song. That meeting of a phrase of music that resonates with a phrase of words that galvanize to form a certain feeling. That (in my crazy world view) is the moment of conception and the rest, up to and including mastering, is basically gestation. The writing of the lyrics from there on in becomes an almost academic exercise by comparison. You can take twists and turns here and there but only up to a point, because the map, the DNA of the song, is already drawn. That said I agree ‘The Glimmer Twins’ was the acknowledged sum of them both.

[@johnbriggs3916]

​@francispower1418 No, "The Glimmer Twins" is them as producer, which is a separate credit -- and royalty.

[@francispower1418]

@@johnbriggs3916 Yes indeed. Often of and for themselves… Yes they wrote plenty of songs for others. Yes they were/are producers in their own right. I agree writing, performing, engineering and producing are all separate roles and yet all part of the same gumbo for many musicians, and Richards would write far more of the songs than Mick ever could. All Mick mostly did, as far as songwriting is concerned, was and still is like doing a crossword puzzle. Because by the time he gets it Keith has already found the music, built the structure, given it a meaning and provided a hook. All Mick has to do is bring out his fountain pen, follow the clues and fill out the blanks. It’s almost academic. I often use the same process to write myself, although I am wearing both hats. The music is the grid, the hook is the heart of it and the rest of the lyrics are written to sit within and around that structure, in a way that best serves the hook. Thereafter the music can be rearranged to better serve what has now become the song. I don’t always write that way but often as not that’s how it goes.

[@danrunnoft6642]

Maybe they're fighting just to get people talking about them.

[@jeffcenters2073]

Music is for everyone Money unfortunately is not 😎

[@duaneparrish6142]

Duane Allman 1500$ for Layla studio work.

[@neilevans6229]

Steve Cropper

[@Lovell93]

Equilibrium is great! A good look at what the elites want the future to be, minus all the corny gun-fu lol. Still an awesome movie based on a dystopian future.

[@thehevytrooper]

might not be 100 percent related... but on the general subject of giving credit to guitar players, its really amazing to see how our Israeli guitar players are contributing to the moral of everyone in israel! (even a couple of international guitarists! like the "never take your pride song") whether its in the hospitals with the wounded, or on the front lines, you dont see violin players, you dont see bass players you dont see piano players, in the end its the guitar players who pick up their guitar and just go where their needed. its something really amazing to see!

[@Scott__C]

Splitting while good also creates animosity that has ruined many a band. Eventually one or two feel they're the creative force etc.

[@EclecticHillbilly]

like Glen Frey and Don Henley?

[@Scott__C]

@@EclecticHillbilly Yeah, discounting everyone else in the group.

[@michagrabowski6753]

Keith Scott and Bryan Adams... Great example imo.

[@mikenadanada7430]

Its been said time and time again that Sting can no longer actually sing Every Breath.

[@davegallagher7428]

When bands records a new song, everybody is creating something new for this song. The bass player, drummer, keyboards, vocals. They should all be given credit IMO.

[@thesmellycatjazz]

That's not how copyright works. If I write all the parts, and I ask you to record the guitar part as written, you're not entitled to a songwriting credit.

[@davegallagher7428]

@@thesmellycatjazz maybe I’m wrong, but didn’t the Doors give songwriting credit to the whole band on a lot of their songs?

[@sqlb3rn]

​@@thesmellycatjazzwhat if the guitar player embellished their solo and the drummer hits his own fills. Do you fire them, give them credit, or fuck them?

[@thesmellycatjazz]

​​​​@@sqlb3rnyou'd get a recording credit, and royalties for any licensing of the recording. If the embellishment is so significant that it becomes an integral part of the song or melody (and it doesn't get cut), then you'll be able to get a songwriting credit. There's more to copyright than purely songwriting credits. Question for you: do you think jazz musicians are getting songwriting credits for their 30s improv solos while playing in a big band?

[@sqlb3rn]

@@thesmellycatjazz no

[@Shiznitt_]

Please bring back the guitar porn wall

[@homegrownson]

If the Song had a Life as Stings Song or even recorded before Andy touched it Sting could Say All MINE, but otherwise its a selfish money grab by former band mates when it should be a celebration that the Two made a Special Song together, Greed & Fame Suck and change people, REMEMBER THAT WHEN LIFE OFFERS YOU A CHANCE TO BE KIND

[@morganghetti]

Sting is a millionaire 100 times over. How much money does he need?

[@WinstonWhite-l9j]

It’s not what Sting needs, you’re talking a about generational money, meaning if structured properly, his great great grandchildren will be living off the interest without touching the original deposit

[@morganghetti]

​@@WinstonWhite-l9jsting already has that kind of wealth. He's extraordinarily rich. One more royalty payment isn't going to make a difference.

[@WinstonWhite-l9j]

@@morganghetti I just love when people suggest what other people do with their money, it’s such a fun game , ain’t it!