This is the title of a presentation I’ll be giving at the Stockton International Riverside Festival on July 31st 2009. More details on venue e.t.c. to follow.

“Creating a hit song, or several can be a rewarding experience, however the song will be published, performed, recorded and sold globally. Keeping up with where the song goes, and making sure copyright is intact proves a very interesting journey for song writer Steve Thompson.

Not just in the field of writing and publishing, but as a producer and arranger for other bands and singers. Years of experience in the music industry provides a fascinating web of interwoven stories within the music industry. He takes the journey with his long established lawyer, Simon Long of Collins Long (London) with fascinating insights into the music industry, publishing and what happens once the song is internationally renowned and played, plus his own personal journey of defending his copyright with the help of Simon Long from vinyl to social media and downloading. This will be a highly entertainingevent with some very interesting stories”.

I have sent MySpace a complaint about cyber bullying on their site. The cyber bully in question is MySpace themselves with their sledgehammer and nut tactics.

They have summarily removed one of my tracks with no discussion and no right to appeal. I own the copyright in the song in question. The song is Ne Me Plaignes Pas recorded by Celine Dion.

They add insult to injury by lecturing me on copyright. They clearly have not read the contents of my site; I’m no stranger to copyright. And then they say I now have to go on MySpace’s “Copyright Education Program” before I can ever upload anything again – no thanks!

Copyright is a moral and ethical issue as well as a financial one. I have done nothing morally or ethically wrong. You may have spotted this disclaimer on my site “Sound clips on this site are either my own copyright or I have some connection with the track. I have mostly used only short clips of tracks to give a flavour of it. It is not my intention to abuse the copyrights of others.”

Financially it’s another story. The track was not downloadable and I was making no money from having it on MySpace. The recording is 26 years old and long past its big money earning period. I am making no impact on Celine’s bank balance whatever nor that of her record company, indeed I may have encouraged a few sales of compilation CD’s.

In 1982 I had my biggest hit with Hurry Home by Wavelength which went top 20. Soon after I had a hit in Canada which seemed less significant at the time, except how were we to know that the singer was to become one of the most successful recording artists in the world. You may have heard the story of how Rene Angelil mortgaged his house to fund Celine’s early career! Well Celine set out on her dream of international stardom armed with one of my songs? Ne me Plaignez Pas ! – I think I deserve better treatment. Celine recorded the song in 1983 having heard Sheena Eastons 1982 recording of my song “Please Don’t Sympathise” (the English version) Shena’s version is still on MySpace (for now)

Bizarrely you can still here the song on MySpace via the YouTube Videos I posted. Click here.

View Compilation CD’s Here

My Space www.myspace.com/stmedia2

Facebook

Way back in those days Brian used to be always calling for re-writes. He called me up one day and said “you’ve just written a hit”. He then went on to say that it was the verse of one song and the chorus of another and could I sort of just “join them together”. Of course I did so and the resulting song was a minor hit single and went Gold on a compilation album. You will find that song HERE

Another time we were sat in a pub in London and he declared that I coudl take my titles for songs from absolutely anywhere. He pointed to a sign on the wall and said, “for instance you could write a song called The Prince of Wales“. My eyes aligted on the sign below this and I declared that I would write a song on that title instead. I described the story that the title evoked and I went home the next day and wrote it. This too became a hit. CLICK HERE

Another fruitful suggestion by Brian led to some most interesting situations. I had recoded a multitude of songs and many of them were sung by The Caffrey Brothers, three real brothers with a great harmony blend. Brian suggested I form a band around the brothers and told me I had to be in it (I had at that time retired from performing) He then trouped up a series of record companies and producers to the North East that finally resulted in THIS

Brians latest publishing venture is called “Heart2Heart Music”., Watch this space!

[edited to add] Met with Brian recently in a London pub. We discussed our strategy for our latest onslaught on the pop music world. Later we noticed to our horror that the pub wasn’t sporting a single discernable song title on it’s walls. Sign of the times? Shortly aftwards he’s at it again asking for the verse of one song to be added to the chorus of another. Some things never change.

Steel Town

preparations – the anecdotes
Jackie – direction
Consett Petrol Staying
My Father

LWAW – vid – Engineering Shop, Castleside – Images from Failklands, GI Bride