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Originally Posted by pwalker8
Yep. The video that goes with that song is just heart wrenching. I remember when it first came out and how many people told me "you just have to listen to this song". Cash also did a version of Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind" that was almost a dirge. Just incredible.
Just think where we would be if musicians treated copyright like authors do. Of course songwriters really love getting those royalty checks. In the documentary, two situations were mentioned.
Many may not know this, but Willie Nelson was a song writer well before he became known as a singer. He once offered to sell the rights of a song he had written to a well known country singer for $500. That singer said, "No, I'll loan you the $500, I'll record it and you get the normal royalties". It became a bit hit. Nelson's first royalty check was for $14,000. That was a lot of money back in the 60's.
Ricky Skaggs once covered an old Bill Monroe song on one of his hit albums. Bill Monroe came up to him an told him "I got the royalty check the other day. It was so much, I was able to pay my land tax and have a bit left over. Feel free to record any of my songs you want."
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That was because when you sold a song back then the person that bought was credited as the song writer. Willie sold a number of his songs that became hits and he did not even receive credit as the song writer.
Apache