Hesitation Blues

"Why didn't you ever copyright any of these tunes way back when?"

“I can tell you why we didn’t copyright ‘em. We didn’t copyright ‘em for, that is, for a great reason, not only me but a’many others. Why the publishers thought that could buy anything they wanted for fifteen, twenty dollars.  Well the fact was that at that particular time, that sporting houses were all over the country and you could go in any town, if you was a good piano player, just as soon as you hit town, you had ten jobs waiting for you. So we all made a lot of money and ten or fifteen or twenty or a hundred dollars didn’t mean very much to us during those days. I’d really like to see those days back again, I’m telling you the truth. They were wonderful days. So the publishers, we didn’t give ‘em anything. So they decided, we know a way to get ‘em, so they, a lot of publishers would come out with tunes, our melodies, and they would steal them. But we kept them for our private material. That is, to battle each other in battles of music. Battles of music is old. Ages old. And of course if we had the best material, we was considered one of the best men. And of course, the best player always had the best jobs and the best jobs always meant plenty money.  When I made a hundred dollars a day I thought I had small day. And now, today, if I make ten, I think I’ve got a great day. That’s how that was. Is they any other information you’d like to ask?”

Jelly Roll Morton to Alan Lomax, 1938