Composers

[Antonio]

At Herb's first albums you can read only family names of the composers of the songs, but not first names. Why is that? It's no problem when it says: "McCartney" or "Lennon". But what about a name as "Smith"? "Walk don't run" is written by a "J. Smith". What is his first name? John or James or whatever?
I'm looking also for the first names of the composers of "South of the border". The album says: "Kennedy - Carr". Can somebody help me?
Thanks in advance!

Antonio

 

[Rudy]

One of the better ways to research songwriters is to find out which licensing organization they are with (ASCAP, BMI, SECAM, etc.) and then go to the appropriate website and do a database search. If you search on song title, you'll get a list of matching songs (in case more than one song has the same title). If you are not sure, each song also lists the artists who have recorded the song. It's a really neat system! Off the top of my head:

http://www.ascap.com

http://www.bmi.com

You can search either site w/o being a member or having to pay a fee.

 

[daveK]

"Walk, Don't Run" was composed by a jazz guitarist named Johnny Smith. Chet Atkins recorded the song in an arrangement similar to the composer's recording. The Ventures learned the song from the Atkins recording but when they did it, they gave it a new arrangement and made it a little faster. The TJB version is faster still.
"South Of The Border" was composed by Michael Carr and Jimmy Kennedy. It became a big hit for Gene Autry. The songwriting duo also composed Autry's hit "Ole Faithful". "Border", of course, later became a hit for Frank Sinatra.