Posthumous Rights?

[stusegal]

Just listened to “Preludes”, the new release of Warren Zevon work that was culled from a stash of tapes found by his son Jordan, who decided to release some of the cuts.

 
The work is wonderful, and it’s great to hear “new” Warren work, and unreleased cuts of previously released work, but, I struggle over the posthumous release of work that an artist decided not to release while he was alive.  These aren’t tapes that were recorded just prior to Zevon’s passing, they are recordings he made all along the way.  Some seem to be early cuts of numbers he later released with more complete harmonies and instrumentation - - and some are numbers that he just hadn’t released (perhaps because they didn’t measure up to his standards?)

 
The disc was very melodic and pleasant, and an absolute pleasure, however, none of Zevon’s albums over which he had artistic control were ever so calm and relaxing – while there were always some melodic and beautifully constructed songs, there were also edgy, driving, sometimes disconcerting numbers that could tie your stomach in knots or make your skin crawl.

 
So while this exhibits even more fine work by an artist who I love, I have to wonder of the right (and I mean moral and ethical, not legal) of anyone to posthumously release the work of an artist, when the artist  had clearly decided to not release that very work themselves?

 
ps. I know this is no different than a 300 year old “unfinished” symphony or ballet, or unfinished canvas, but I question those too.

Comments

[stephenhsegal.livejournal.com]

It's an interesting question. And it's worth considering the flip side of it. Take Kafka, one of the greatest writers of the century, who suffered from depression through much of his short life. Almost none of his work was published while he was alive, and he instructed that it all be destroyed upon his death. His friend and executor overruled his wishes -- and the landscape of modern literature was changed forever. So I'd ask: Is the artist necessarily the best person to assess his own artistic worth?

Also, for what it's worth: When I interviewed Warren, I asked him how come there had never been a performance or recording of the symphony he'd reportedly written a few years back. He hemmed and hawed a bit before saying, "Maybe I just have low self-esteem." Well... dammit, I'm not sure that's a good enough reason.

(Though I will always wonder -- unless the opportunity ever arises to ask Jordan -- whether parts of that symphony ended up evolving into the song "Genius.")

You raise it to an even higher level . . . .

[stu-segal.livejournal.com]

. . . of ethics/integrity.

Could there be a more rigid obligation than that of executor to executee (is is a word?)? I hadn't even considered intentional disregard of an artists' wishes; I assumed no such obligation in my question. I guess the world can thank a man who Kafka clearly would not have thanked.

But I don't know that I would hang my hat on precedent - given of course that the only precedents of which we could be aware are those that fall on the side of exposing the work - we'll never know the unexposed.

Of course, another question might be, give the artist didn't choose to release the work, is it appropriate to consider the posthumously released works of an artist as their work at all (considering they may have considered those pieces as discards)?

[stephenhsegal.livejournal.com]

I think that last question starts to get at the best way to think about it, though I'd ratchet back the phrasing a bit. Sure it's still "their work" -- just as an anonymous act of charity is still appreciated by the recipient, or just as a wife-beater is still a wife-beater even if he only hits his wife behind closed doors. But it is entirely appropriate to say of an artist: "These are the works he officially endorsed, and these are the ones he didn't."

Another part of the equation is that there are many distinctions to made be concerning why some of a professional musician's output may not have been released -- or even why some of it WAS.

For instance: The Hooters made albums for Columbia/Sony Records in 1985, 1987 and 1989. They recorded a fourth one in 1991, delivered it to the label -- and Sony told them, "Nope, we don't hear any hits, not releasing it." By the time they found a new label and went back to the studio, two more years had passed, their artistic groove had moved on, and the record they ended up making featured an entirely different lineup of songs. So -- what about that lost album? It had the band's sanction when it was made. If musical historians ever unearth it, should it count as canon?

Or from the opposite perspective, look at Warren's album Transverse City. If I correctly remember the liner notes from his big anthology in the '90s, he'd still been working on trying to get that album "right" when he ran smack into the end of the budget and the label told him, "Okay, you're finished, let's release this puppy." So there's a work that is considered canon even though the artist didn't feel that he was done with it yet.

It seems inevitable that at least some unpublished works by famous artists will emerge after their death. I think that's basically acceptable -- as long as the posthumous publisher doesn't tout the work as anything other than what it is: work that the artist himself, for whatever reason, did not officially issue under his name.

And then there's . . . . . . . .

[stu-segal.livejournal.com]

. . . . ELVIS !!!!!

I really wasn't plan to play the Dead Elvis Card, but it seems like a painful proliferation of the work of the King which seems to have but one goal - $$$$$

Did you see - "ELVIS LIVES" (don't you just love the symmetry?). Do you think Elvis could have even imagined that someone would be selling tickets to "live" performances of his clone? - whoops, I mean filmed images.

So now the question morphs to - does motivation (of the releaser/exposer) have a bearing? How about in the case of Elvis, where the released work is making money, but is doing little or nothing to improve the reputation of the artist - perhaps is even detrimental?

[stephenhsegal.livejournal.com]

Well, you're the one who loves Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, featuring an "all-new" performance by the dead Laurence Olivier, right?

Taking it back to the original case in question, I'd say this: You should absolutely feel no shame, guilt, or wrongdoing in enjoying Preludes, for one simple reason if no other. It's one thing to acknowledge that Warren never released these recordings himself. But, you know, if he REALLY didn't want anyone to hear them EVER, he could have just destroyed them. He didn't do that, though -- which suggests that, even if he didn't feel they were as saleable as the stuff he did release, he didn't consider them to be garbage, either. And even if he was just saving them for his kids, it's certainly fair enough for his kids to turn around and say, "You know, people would enjoy some of this stuff."

[ex-frankwu.livejournal.com]

Hey Stu - I thought about this for a while - I don't really have any answers for anyone else (except for the fact that writers are often depressed, and depressed people often give self-destructive instructions to others which should NOT be followed), but I thought it'd be fun to continue the thread on my lj to see what other people think.