Sock It To Me Santa - correct credits?

I believe the cover history of 'Sock It To Me Santa' is as follows:

Bob Seger and the Last Heard (Cameo Parkway 444) December 1966

Bud Logan (RCA Victor 47-9678) Date unknown, number sequence suggests winter 1968

Lazy Cowgirls (Bomp BMP 137) January 1987

Murphy's Law (on album 'The Best of Times', Relativity Records RELA 1070) 1991

Marshall Crenshaw (on charity album 'A Home for the Holidays') October 1997

In ASCAP, the Marshall Crenshaw version of the song is credited to Dan Honaker, Carl Lagassa, Robert Clark Seger.

The Bob Seger version was used in the film 'Christmas with the Kranks', and IMDB agrees with these credits: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0388419/soundtrack. However, in the list of early singles on the Bob Seger fan site http://www.segerfile.com/singles.html, it's credited to Seger-Honaker-Lagassa-Leone. The same site has an obituary for Dave Leone where it explicitly says he had a credit for this song (http://www.segerfile.com/marchadds.html). Since this is an obituary, I think it would only be mentioned if the writer believed it to be true. Unfortunately I haven't found a picture of the record label.

But the larger problem is mentioned in http://www.segerfile.com/singles.html: when the song was included in a 1994 compilation, the credit had apparently changed to T Keels. In BMI, APRA and HFA the song is credited to T Keels. HFA credits the Bob Seger and the Last Heard version to Keels. T. Keels seems to be Thomas Bailey "Bunky" Keels, a country musician who died in 2004 (http://www.countrymusicnews.ca/news.ihtml?step=2&article_id=807), who played in Jim Reeves' band and on Chubby Checker’s 'Let’s Twist Again'.

The Bud Logan song is credited to Keels (see pictures below).

I don't have any credits for Lazy Cowgirls or Murphy's Law or, apart from what is mentioned above, definite credits for Bob Seger's version. I have seen the Murphy's Law song described as 'Santa's Got A Brand New Bag', which is a line in the Seger song, so it's probably the same song. This line is obviously 'inspired' by James Brown, which seems to be at odds with Keels' background.

Does anyone know, is this one song with disputed credits, or is it two songs that have somehow become confused? If the credits are disputed, what is the story?

Thanks!

Jon

Last edit: 2006-09-13 00:46:56 UTC by baggish

http://www.spun.com/music/product-detail.jsp?id=1006287

A clip of the Murphy's Law song; it's the Seger song. Tthe lyrics match the last part of the Seger song according to various lyrics sites. No credits given in those either, though.

The fan site speculation about the change in credits makes sense to me. Though you'd think then that the Marshall Crenshaw version credit would have been researched for clearance and listed as Keels also.

Keels' obituary notes session work done for country artists. But session musicians often did everything including rocknroll. There are several famous country musicians in Phil Spector-produced records; Floyd Cramer, for example. So the connection is not impossible.

Thanks Wally... You're right, it is the same song. I found the artwork for the Murphy's Law album at http://www.punkunited.com/alphalist.php?alpha=M, but unfortunately no credits there either (unless they're in the small print...). At least I was able to add their rather hilarious cover of 'Ebony and Ivory' to SHS from the spun.com clip.

Quote by wally creek at 1158222510:

Though you'd think then that the Marshall Crenshaw version credit would have been researched for clearance and listed as Keels also.

Yes, also the credits for the Bob Seger version in the imdb link (2004 film) do not agree with HFA...

Jon

This song was written by Bunky Keels who was my father,he passed away in Nov 2004.He was a session musician in Nashville for many years,also he worked with the late Jim Reeves and the Blue Boys.After Jim was killed in a tragic plane crash Mary ,Jims' wife kept Jims band together 1964-1966ish the band cut several records on RCA produced by Chet Atkins and Felton jarvis.Among the records are 1." "LIVE THE BLUE BOYS IN PERSON"recorded in Clearwater Florida LPM-3696 LSP-3696 2."THE SOUNDS OF JIM REEVES THE BLUE BOYS"LPM-3529.3.HIT AFTER HIT THE BLUE BOYS LPM-3794.Bud Logan was the vocalist with the Blue boys and was the singer on "Sock it to me Santa"Dads nick name is "Bunky" full name is "Thomas Bailey Keels"

I just went over the seger connection to "Sock it to me Santa" Mary Reeves had Pub. Rights then I believe the catalog was sold to Sony Tree.I might just look into it further.I would love to see the composer change on the cassette if someone could post a picture.Sony could have gone after the rights? mikekeels@hotmail.com

Last edit: 2010-04-17 14:10:52 UTC by ekim1964

I don't know if you want to revisit this problematic work. I have added it to the database along with a couple of covers, tagging it as having disputed credits. GEMA has two entries, one credited to Bob Seger et al, and another to Thomas Leeks. Discogs entries also show an additional credit to a David Leone though there is no info on him.

Actually, this is the Thomas Keels version which is a completely different song as far as I can tell.

http://www.45cat.com/record/479678

Yep, good find, you've solved the main issue, the Bud Logan/Thomas Keels is clearly a different song.