Originally Posted By: rockstar_not
...

My understanding was that the singer/songwriter influx of the 1960's started to change the face of who was actually being recorded? From my limited understanding of the recording industry history, good ol' Bob Dylan being recorded, with his croaking voice, singing all of his own songs, was kind of an anomaly and quite a risk by the recording company executives. The popularity of that first Dylan album began to shift this from the performer to the writer to the writer/performer as the same person/entity...



The fatcats don't change their stripes over trends.

If I remember the year correctly, and I should, since this happened just as I thought I was entering a nice career as a session musician, in 1977 the Musician's Union in the US ordered a strike. I think the head of the union's name at the time was Sullivan, again memory may be wrong.

But what I do remember was the end result of that strike.

The agreement stipulated that if someone performed on a recording release, their name must be listed on the official recording roster as well as the on the liner notes.

That meant that they were then eligible for royalties.

It also spelled the death of the great and lesser studio session bands.

As Carol Kaye wrote, paraphrased, there was a time when she enjoyed the same kind of yearly income as a medical doctor from her salary working as a studio session musician. Those days went away, at least in the US, during the late 70s, because of that strike and the "agreement" that one man in charge at the time made, the scuttlebutt was that he did not ask any of the musicians about it, just went ahead and did it. There was lots of griping, the kind of griping that only musicians can do. THAT part I remember quite well, as I was one of the gripers. And then some.

Note: I tried to websearch for a citation on the above, believe it or not, could not find a single entry about musician's strike in 1977, in "the 70s" or the likes even though I poured through several page returns of each search term and more. That alone can make one rather suspicious.


--Mac

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