uncredited music on CDs

[Robert Cohen <rlcm17...>]

On, I think, the last _four_ CDs of (or partly of) liturgical folk music 
that I've seen or heard, there was at least one--and as many as 
four!--misattributed or, usually, _un_attributed melodies that actually have 
known composers.  In folk music history, this is called "losing the 
composer" and is paradoxically a sign of success:  I.e., a song or melody 
loses its composer--and is thenceforth attributed to "Traditional" or 
"Anonymous"--usually only when it's really "made it" as a folk song and is 
accepted by the community in question (folk/Jewish/etc.) as part of (i.e., 
worthy of inclusion in) their "traditional" music.  (A perfect example:  the 
"traditional" "Shalom Aleichem," whose music was composed by Rabbi Israel 
Goldfarb earlier in this century.)   So that's nice, in a sense, and 
certainly it _is_ a part of the reality of folk and traditional music--but 
surely recordings of the songs or melodies of such unheralded composers 
ought to properly credit them, not to mention pay them royalties as per the 
requirements of American law.  Yet many musicians just don't _know_ whose 
music they're recording--sometimes despite the best of intentions and the 
most conscientious of efforts.  (Especially so in the case of the four-cuts 
CD I mentioned.)  I always try to get to the musicians or performers in 
question w/ the correct data, and they're usually grateful for the 
information and do their best to make things right.  (By the way, in one 
case, a curious sort of _tikkun_ [fixing] had occurred, as a melody _not_ by 
Shlomo Carlebach, olev hashalom-- whose melodies have continually, and 
occasionally deliberately, been recorded w/out attribution to him--_was_ 
[mis-]attributed to him!  Still, this is hardly the way to go about making 
things right vis-a-vis Shlomo's music...)  Other than asking me (not the 
worst possible solution, but hardly an ideal one, and there are certainly 
limitations to my recognition of such melodies), how can we help musicians 
and performers to identify (or confirm the identity of) the composers of 
liturgical melodies (niggunim) they perform?  Any thoughts?

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