[HANASHIR:12044] Re:Recording other people's material

[FAVNI <FAVNI...>]

Just an interesting aside - many years ago when Jackie Cytrynbaum and I were 
recording DAISIES & DUCKLINGS, we wanted to record Hap Palmer's Colour song. 
So being rather naive, and chock-full of integrity, we called up the 
publisher, Educational Activities and told them we were putting the song on 
our album. To our great consternation, they said NO - WE DO NOT WANT YOU TO 
HAVE IT ON YOUR RECORDING! At the time, they would also not touch any Jewish 
material - or artists and our track record was LATKES & HAMENTASHEN, MOSTLY 
MATZAH, THE SEVENTH DAY etc. We were so aghast, especially since we had 
always loved that song and Hap Palmer's work for EC.
In any case, we had already prepared tracks and felt it was just 'menshlach' 
to let the composer know. In Canada we were told the same thing, that once a 
song has been recorded, you have the right to re-record it as long as you pay 
mechanicals.
The end of the story was that Jackie quickly wrote another song - that bears 
no relationship to Colours, we were so disheartened, upset and disappointed - 
and since then I personally veto Hap Palmer's work and Educational Activities 
as a then anti-Semitic bunch - yes, even in the kids' market. I sure can tell 
some tales having been called "Miss Matzah Ball etc - in the early '80s 
before it was ok for Jewish artists to BE JEWISH proudly - like Sharon Lois & 
Bram who did 3 Xmas albums before they could ever do any Chanukah stuff.
Sorry for the long-winded tale ... .
Fran Avni

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