Twilight Is The Time

Hello,

I’m Amy and this is my newsletter Why Sing Goodbye Songs where I share stories and songs from the archive of my dad, the late singer-songwriter Pete Scott.

If you just want to hear the song without reading the story, click here.

The question I’ve been asked the most by far since starting this project is how to get hold of Pete’s first two albums Don’t Panic (1971) and Jimmy the Moonlight (1976), which were released by Rubber Records and are currently only available secondhand on vinyl. I’m doing all of this on my own and don’t have any access to legal advice, so I’m limited in what I can say about the situation. But the short answer is that a complex ongoing legal dispute affecting a number of artists from that era means that I am currently unable to release them. As things stand, that is unlikely to change until the copyright period lapses in 2041 and 2046.

This isn’t the newsletter I was planning to write this month, but I wanted to let you all know about a crowdfunder that is happening on behalf of the musician Dick Gaughan, who is raising funds to take legal action against a company called Celtic Music who claim to own the rights to several of his albums. Celtic Music also claim to own the rights to Don’t Panic and Jimmy the Moonlight. Pete never worked with this company.

To quote from the Dick Gaughan crowdfunder:

“If you can help Dick Gaughan towards establishing his rights to some or all of his works… it’s possible that the process will reveal information and set precedents that may allow other now elderly artists from the 70s or their heirs to pursue claims of their own… It is Dick Gaughan’s express hope that other artists of his generation who have felt their own legacies to have been affected by a record label’s claimed ownership of their works will be able to benefit from this campaign – by any precedents set and by money towards their own legal fees, should any funds be left over.”

There are so many worthy and important causes out there and this is such a difficult economic moment for so many people that I am really hesitant about doing any kind of fundraising in relation to Pete’s music. However, I know a lot of you care deeply about Don’t Panic and Jimmy the Moonlight, so I wanted you to know that there is a way of supporting legal action that could eventually make them available again, if you feel called to do so.

Click here to donate to the crowdfunder.

I’ve donated the money that came from downloads of California and Emily’s Eyes, so anyone who bought those tracks has already contributed. Thank you.

Before he died, Pete had been seriously considering re-recording the songs from those first two albums as 50^th anniversary editions. The loss of those albums was a source of enduring sadness to him, and I am considering what can be done to at least make the songs available again in some form, even if the rights to the original recordings remain out of reach.

That’s a longer term part of the project that I wasn’t intending to discuss publicly yet. All I can do today is give you the opportunity to support Dick Gaughan if you would like to. And I can also share a previously unreleased demo of the song Twilight Is The Time, which featured on Don’t Panic. To be clear: this recording is not the recording that features on the album itself. It is a separate demo recording of the song to which I own the rights and am entitled to release. Pete wrote this song when he was about 25 years old, which blows my mind. Click play below to listen (opens in a new window if you’re reading this on email)

You can stream Twilight Is The Time for free or download it for £1 here.

I will donate all the proceeds from this song to Dick Gaughan’s crowdfunder, which you can donate to directly by clicking here.

Thanks for being here and see you next time,

Amy

P.S. If you do decide to donate to the crowdfunder, please let me know by replying to this so that I can thank you.