I sent the following message to Alan Paul, was curious if anyone here had some insight on the subject:
Hey Alan,
I was thinking about the original ABB and their process of songwriting and I am hoping you might be able to shed some light on it.
I have read about Dickey and his ability with melodies and Berry's massive contributions to Whipping Post. I was curious if you have spoken with Butch, Gregg, Dickey, and Jaimoe in depth about who was good at adding what on the original tunes. For example on Black Hearted Woman, I assume Gregg had the lyrics and some chords. Clearly there are alot of different riffs and rhythm sections to that song, how big of an imprint of Duane, Dickey, and Berry is on that song. Who wrote the main riff? With Dickey's sense of melody I could see him being good at coming up with things like that. I can imagine Duane being like Derek, and being great at coming up with the grooves in the song. Obviously Berry had alot of musical sense, were does he fit in the songwriting process? Was it just a process of the band playing and jamming so much that these ideas were always floating around and when Gregg came in with a song they were just applied to that?
If you could shed any further light on the subject it would be greatly appreciated.
As far as "Black Hearted Woman" goes ... who worked up the proto-metal outro? Dickey or Duane?
This is one of my favorite topics to discuss when drinking a few beers with fellow ABB nuts.
I'd love for someone to explain to me why Duane never got songwriting credits. Dreams is basically "his song", at least the music is. Does anyone really believe Gregg sketched out his guitar parts, LOL.
My only conclusion is that they decided to give 100% songwriting credit to whoever brought the lyrics in. Duane either didn't give a rat's fat ass about royalties or had absolutely horrible advice from his management.
I've speculated that he might have felt this was a way to keep peace in the band since the two guys that got all the song writing credits were also the most temperamental and the biggest pains in his ass in terms of his leading the band. This is all just my opinion and wild speculation.
Bottom line the way songwriting credits were assigned in the ABB seems ludicrous to me and I'm sure Duane wasn't the only one that got screwed.
I hope this thread draws a lot of comments. I'd love to hear opinions.
Thanks for starting it Ryan!
Dreams is Gregg's song. He came in with the lyrics and the chords. Writing a song does not mean you write out everyone's part. "all arrangements by" covers it. you can search for other threads detailing the difference between arranging and writing.
Lyrics and/or melody.
That's it. Harmonic arrangement is not part of a copyright.
