The Pickin' on Pickers

Hey VV,

Yeah, we had an editor's discussion on this mess last month, I should be cleaning my part up. We are going to try to list the musicians where possible.

I believe where we can't find any musicians names in the credits, we are going to credit it to 'CHM Studio Artists'.

If you got any ideas, shoot them at us.

Thanx

Well, my position is to be consistent. Even if we can dig up the session musicians, it seems to me the label intended that the artist be the generic "Pickin' On", so that is what we should (and I will continue to) use.

I have run across a lot of these, and some indicate "featuring" e.g. Cornbread Red . It seems that this occurs on non-instrumental tributes. In those cases, I credit the "actual" artist.

In short, instrumentals: "Pickin' On"; vocals = actual artist.

Look at it from the position of the users of this site. How can a song best be found? Under some uncredited session musician, or what's on the cover art?

Well, I wouldn't say the label intends "Pickin' on..." to be a generic artist. More to the point, it aims for something like a serial title trademark and thus often anonymizes the recording artists.

So, basically, I think we have quite a clearly defined situation...

Whilst releases like Pickin' on The Rolling Stones - A Tribute indeed consist of recordings by various identified artists and therefore seems properly credited, we in the above case actually have an artist/project name which is not the case for quite some other "Pickin' on..." releases.

So far, those are simply filed under the made up artist name "Pickin' on Series". However, an artist or group of that name doesn't exist and "Pickin' on..." is just the common part of serial motto recordings by mainly unidentified musicians for the CHM label.

Therefore, I'd agree with Wayne that such CHM releases - no matter if the title starts with or includes "Pickin' on..." or "Bluegrass Tribute" etc. - would best be filed under the alias 'CHM Studio Artists'. This, as far as I remember, also reflects the outcome of our internal discussion.

Hey Cami & VV,

A month or so ago I was adding the Pickin' On series and stopped because we had that internal discussion.

Now that a user, VV, has started suggesting them, I've been chomping at the bit to add them to the data base again.

Most of the series does show the artists on the back of the CD. Sometimes it is up to 12 people.

For the Release, I listed every artist on the back of the CD. For the Performance, under Performer and Performing Artist, I also listed every name. In your opinion of what was discussed, should I continue to do that?

VV, I understand what you are trying to say. As a user you would probably be looking for the Pickin' on series. If you type Pickin' On in the Discover search box, users can still find them under RELEASES. Eventually under ARTISTS, that should go away once we clean it up.

Out of curiosity, how would or did you say who played that on your radio program?

Love, peace & beer,

Wayne

I haven't started using the instrumentals yet, though I do have plans for a future music related bit. Right now, I am using "CMH Records (Pickin' On Series)" for my mp3 tags,

I have already used some with vocals, but from my experience these releases are all credited as "featuring", etc. named band or artist. In those cases I credit the "featuring" artist.

I only use music for bits and bumpers, so I don't credit artists on air. I do add the credits to the notes attached to the recordings made available as a podcast.

To me, uniform, consistent treatment is the most important thing. While I will continue to credit the instrumentals as described above (whether I know the session musicians or not), I do want to know how SHS wants them to be submitted so I can make the necessary adjustments for that process.