On Jan. 1, 2023, copyrighted works from 1927 will enter the U.S. public domain, according to the Duke University School of Law’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain. These works will be free for all to copy, share, and alter to create something new.
While this change affects literature such as Arthur Conan Doyle’s later Sherlock Holmes stories and movies like Alfred Hitchcock’s first thriller “The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog,” I always focus on musical compositions. And there are some good ones this time around from the likes of Irving Berlin to Louis Armstrong.
As a musician, this means I can play these popular tunes in public or record them without having to worry about paying a licensing fee or running afoul of the performing rights organization (PPO) that registers those songs.
Here are just a few notable compositions being freed up for use in 2023:
- “The Best Things in Life Are Free” by George Gard De Sylva, Lew Brown, and Ray Henderson. This well-known song is from the musical Good News.
- “I Scream You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream.” I thought I had come up with this clever play on words when I was just a kid but I have since learned that this novelty song with the same name predated me by several decades. It was actually written by Howard Johnson, Billy Moll, and Robert A. King.
- “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” This is one of master songwriter Irving Berlin’s most popular and widely covered tunes. Over the years it has been performed by everyone from Judy Garland to Young Frankenstein in the Mel Brooks’ movie comedy.
- “Ol’ Man River.” This is a classic from the successful songwriting team of Oscar Hammerstein II, and Jerome Kern. It was featured in the musical Show Boat. It has also been covered by jazz great Count Basie as well as rocker Rod Stewart.
- “Back Water Blues,” “Preaching the Blues,” and “Foolish Man Blues,” are three of the songs going public by one of the greatest blues singers of all time Bessie Smith.
- “Potato Head Blues” and “Gully Low blues” by Satchmo himself, Louis Armstrong, the influential trumpet player with the unique raspy vocals.
- “East St. Louis Toodle-O” by Bob Miley and big band leader Duke Ellington. I first heard this composition when one of my favorite bands, Steely Dan, covered it on the Pretzel Logic album.
- “My Blue heaven” by George Whiting and Walter Donaldson. This song would later spawn a major motion picture but it was also used in the Ziegfeld Follies way back in 1927.
Duke points out that only the musical compositions, the music and lyrics that would appear on the sheet music, are entering the public domain. Recordings of those songs are covered by a separate copyright. I always do my own unique arrangements.
Last year, as I noted in my December 2022 blog, decades of recordings became subject to the public domain if they were created by the end of 1922. This year, however, none are. Sound recordings made in 1923 won’t become public property until 2024.
I celebrate Public Domain Day every year as part of the holiday season because adding some of these classic tunes to my repertoire and using them as springboard to inspire my own creativity is like an additional Christmas gift.