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From:  "Laura Ruiz" <laura@d...>
Date:  Thu Jan 10, 2002  2:36 am
Subject:  RE: [vocalist] SINGERS AND MUSICIANS

I'll admit that it never occurred to me that from an international
perspective a "singer" and a "musician" might be, by definition,
different animals. But that doesn't, nevertheless, make the definitions
necessarily *right*. However, I will go with Mike's idea of taking it
more like "singers are *more* than musicians". That feeds my ego just
enough to be satisfying without being offensive I think.

As far as recordings go, and who gets name credit: There are instances
where the backup musicians may not be too terribly thrilled to have
their name on any given recording. Mainly this would be the case with
studio musicians who end up working on every possible genre imaginable
simply to make some money. I, for one, have done studio violin work on
a "jazz" (I put that in quotes because I wouldn't have considered this
jazz) recording and I'm perfectly happy, nee, even thrilled, not to have
my name associated with that recording. Same holds true for a couple of
pop albums I can be heard on - there are even a couple of videos that
were out a number of years ago that I could be seen on briefly.
Hopefully briefly enough that no one I know would recognize me - course,
no one I know would watch some of these thing voluntarily anyway.

BUT, we're not talking about me here are we? It's true that there are
solo artists who have surrounded themselves with great musicians in
order to make great recordings. Sting immediately comes to mind with
"Dream of the Blue Turtle" (I think that was the name of it - my
recording was stolen several years ago). Sting was the lead man, the
name, but I'll tell you - my husband bought that recording because of
the musicians that were "backing up" Sting. Not for Sting himself. So
when it's a small group of musicians involved with a "name", you usually
do at least have access to the names. But if it's an orchestra backing
up a musician, of course you're not going to have every name in that
orchestra listed. No, wait. That's not always necessarily so. Often
liner notes will have a page listing the musicians and the instruments
they play. Not always, but sometimes they do.

I think that ultimately it comes down to what's practical for liner
notes, and what kind of group is backing up the name. Personally, I
think it's really a non-issue.

Laura




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