[x] When is a collab not a collab?

Scott and I have been working our private parts off on various folk albums, and determining whether they are collaborations or not is often not a straightforward task.

Examples:

[www.bandtoband.com] http://www.bandtoband.com/index.php?Page=Search&AlbumId=17800
"Roy Bailey With Martin Simpson & John Kirkpatrick
Sit Down & Sing"

Deemed a collab because the sub-collaborators are printed just underneath the main performer in not-very-much smaller type.

[www.bandtoband.com] http://www.bandtoband.com/index.php?Page=Search&AlbumId=17974
"Roy Bailey
Up The Wooden Hill"

Not deemed a collab because the co-conspirators (Kirkpatrick, etc.) are listed in much smaller type right at the bottom of the cover.

[www.bandtoband.com] http://www.bandtoband.com/index.php?Page=Search&AlbumId=17976
"Roy Bailey
Why Does It Have To Be Me?"

Not deemed a collab for the same reason as Wooden Hill.

Now we have a tricky one:
"Shirley Collins: Shirley Sings Irish", which is how it's universally billed in all the websites I've found it on (and there aren't many).
[www.thebeesknees.com] http://www.thebeesknees.com/bk-sc-di.html
[www.shirleycollins.co.uk] http://www.shirleycollins.co.uk/disco.htm

However, eventually a pic of this was found:
[www.popsike.com] http://www.popsike.com/php/detaildata.php?itemnr=4046202959
Billed as "Shirley Collins With Robin Hall On Guitar", with as much right to be called a collab as the abovementioned "Sit Down & Sing" - but never (as far as I know) acknowledged as a collab - just a SC solo EP.

So we need to develop a definitive rule or set of rules to determine the boundary line between a collab and a with-guests offering.

There are other equally grey-area albums where the main artist is a band and the guests are another band. Here's one: "World Saxophone Quartet: Metamorphosis" - with the African Drums - now are the latter collaborators or guests? Currently on the q as the former, but I'm starting to have doubts.

In cases like these, as with other sticky Rules situations, we often rely upon secondary information at hand to invoke a ruling. These secondary sources of information can come in the form of inserts, back covers, labels, etc and often break the deadlock on situations in questions. When determining the validity of collaborations I believe we should also turn to these secondary sources of information to help clarify our understanding of the situation.

In the specific cases you've mentioned I feel that it is perfectly valid to look at the cover art to see if any additional information presented therein can help understand the situation. In the various Roy Bailey cases, it seems clear that the one collaboration we have is duly represented in the cover artwork while the others clearly elevate Roy as the primary musician with the others as secondary participants. In the case of Shirley Collins, the title itself distinguishes Shirley apart from Robin Hall to a large enough degree to relegate Hall to guest status.

I don't think there are any hard and fast Rules we could implement except to add the terminology of "equal billing" to the base collaboration Rule:

"A collaboration is defined as two independent parties performing in conjunction and whose subsequent recorded material is released with equal billing under their current band names joined by the keyword "And"."

Opinions?


Kevin

Not sure, forcing "And" would decollabify some of the "withs" we've got, and invalidate instances of (our old favourite) "featuring".

Actually the current Rule contains the "And" but should probably be expanded to something like:

"A collaboration is defined as two independent parties performing in conjunction and whose subsequent recorded material is released with equal billing under their current band names joined by a keyword such as "And"."


Kevin