Not sure how I feel about this....

[NightTrain]

...but the words "grave robbery" passed through my head when I read this article:


Conway Twitty Sings a Song He Never Heard
"Duet" With Anita Cochran Contrived From Old Recordings

By: Edward Morris

Conway Twitty is back -- and sounding larger than life -- with a song that was written 10 years after he died. Titled "(I Wanna Hear) A Cheatin' Song," it pairs him with Warner Bros. Records' Anita Cochran, who wrote the song following a conversation she had about Twitty with her co-producer, Warner Bros. Nashville president, Jim Ed Norman. The single will be released to radio on Monday (June 7).

Norman, who was head of the Warner Bros. country division during Twitty's 1982-87 tenure at the label, created the late singer's part of the "duet" by slicing out specific words and, in some cases, syllables from master recordings and then putting them in the sequence Cochran's lyrics dictated.

Before undertaking this strangest of tasks, Norman contacted Twitty's widow and co-producer, Dee Jenkins, for her approval. She not only gave her OK but also provided Cochran and Norman a master list of lyrics and suggestions of where certain words or phrases
might be found.

A spokeswoman for Warner Bros. says that Jenkins' response to the finished record was, "I am amazed that they can do this, and I love the song. I definitely think it was a song that Conway would have recorded."

The song will be included in Cochran's forthcoming album, "God Created Woman." Twitty died June 5, 1993.

[Skittles]

1. I'll tell you how to feel about it, NightTrain

we should kick some ass; this is nothing short of obscene.

[NightTrain]

3. I do believe you're right!

I felt uncomfortable when Natalie Cole grafted her late father's vocals onto her remake of "Unforgettable," and when Hank Williams Jr. recorded a "duet" with his daddy (not to mention filmed a video in which they "performed" the song together). But this Conway Twitty stuff goes much farther, and it just ain't right!

[Skittles]

5. it is artistic theft for profit

disgusting

[DAGDA56]

2. Sort of like Audio-PhotoShop...

...proof of the existence of something that never was...creepy.

[democracyindanger]

4. Jenkins added,

"Do I get my check now?"

[zbdent]

6. Big deal. John Lennon's been selling new stuff since

1981.

Wait, that was Yoko and "What's Left of the Beatles".

Wait, no, that's Michael Jackson.

I'm confused.

[johnnie]

7. I see no problem with it

I loved when they put the new Elvis tunes together and the Beatles stuff.
I know this is different but being a singer/songwriter myself, if they wanted to use any part of my "art" after I kick...I would be happy with it, especially if it was approved by one of my loved ones.
Conway was a great singer and if this will bring his name back to some sort of recognition, then I think it is a great idea. Some of the fans would love to hear anything "new" by him.
Who are we to say what the deceased "artist" would like and not like?
I don't know...I personally don't see anything wrong here. It's just technology moving forward.

[Unperson 309]

8. And If They Used Your Voice

patched together to make a hit tune that became the Republican anthem for a Presidential election, you'd be OK with that?

The basic premise of art is that it is the effort of the artist. It is the artist manipulating environmental entities (sound, pigment, clay, wood, etc.) in order to place something which exists in HIS/HER imagination out there in a way that communicates it to onlookers or hearers or readers.

When the ARTIST *dies*, the ouevre STOPS because the artist has ceased to be! He is a dead artist, he is no more..

Oh, sorry...

*ahem* And while the artist's work may be reproduced, it is just plain WRONG to produce NEW stuff!

"Classic Peanuts" as a comic strip creeps me out because of the way it keeps coming out, daily, as if Sparky Schultz had never laid down his Rapidographs. Sure the strip is in reruns, but it creeps me out all the same! Far more than it would if it had come out in one gigantic compilation book.

When I die, my music dies with me! The stuff I did while alive, OK, but new stuff? Right out!

309