This kind of thing will increase in frequency, I think. Just like they can now generate completely digital characters in movies like the Star Wars series and Lord of the Rings, they will soon be able to place deceased actors in movies (convincingly!) by digitally recreating them. Completely synthesizing a voice, not just pasting together snippets, will also come.

Then the debating will begin as to who owns the rights to a deceased individual's persona. Who should get paid for their "acting" or "singing"? Should their family or estate get some kind of stipend...?

By the way Janice, that's not her debut single. Remember the big record she had with Steve Wariner. It was a single off her first album. She's also one helluva lead guitar picker who can hold her own with the big boys....JH
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Livin' in the Past and the Future with a 12 string Mooney Universal tuning.

[This message was edited by Jerry Hayes on 03 June 2004 at 07:34 AM.]

Gee ... think of the possibilities ...
Bruce Springsteen and ... Alfalfa
Sheryl Crowe and ... Rudy Valee
Seal and ... Ritchie Valens
Whitney houston and ... Ethel Merman (a dueling rendition of "I will always love you" and "There's No Business Like show Business".

There's no such thing as good taste when there's a buck to be made.

[This message was edited by Andy Volk on 03 June 2004 at 07:46 AM.]

Natalie Cole adapted her vocals to Nat's so I approve.

However in this case I think it goes too far
and it's a wonder Conways family did or possibly could not object.

This new thing is simply disgusting to me and I sure hope it will not create another "goldrush" in music business. I don't want to listen to "new" material of Waylon, Tammy, Faron and the others who have already left us.

I refuse to buy any record with tracks like that on it. Unfortunately that's as much as I can do.

Kind Regards, Walter
www.austriansteelguitar.at.tf

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[This message was edited by Walter Stettner on 03 June 2004 at 09:37 AM.]

She did play lead guitar pretty well. No steel, couple guitars and keys.

We all grew up with the idea that music was something that people performed live, and the recording studio was sort of a sonic camera, capturing a moment of sound the way a camera captures a visual image. But with todays technology, it is possible to do much more.

Rather than worry about how a recording was made, we should base or feelings about it on whether or not it's any good.

Leaving the necrophelia and ripping off of the artist's name and work aspects out of it, I think that there is nothing wrong artificially creating a recording of something that cannot be duplicated on stage (as I have done).

I should mention that in a classical music forum, I have been very heavily criticised by 3 people for using studio trickery to create my CDs. They seem far more concerned with the way I recorded them than with the quality of the music, so I'm a little defensive about this issue.

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I think this example is an abuse.

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[edit]I found the thread http://steelguitarforum.com/Archives/Archive-000003/HTML/20011227-1-010360.html [/edit]

-johnson

[This message was edited by erik on 04 June 2004 at 05:43 PM.]

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Resectfully, Mike, even if it was excellent, would you approve of someone taking digital snippets of your playing, piecing it together and presenting it as a new work by Mike Perlowin?

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By PETER COOPER
Staff Writer

Late legend's part on new song created from old vocal snippets

Technology cannot raise the dead, but it can make them sing.

Music Row long has known of such grave-defying, cash register-ringing power. Years after their fatal plane crashes, Jim Reeves and Patsy Cline's voices were spliced together to create a hit posthumous duet. In 1989, producers blended Hank Williams Jr.'s voice alongside his long gone, lonesome daddy's on There's A Tear In My Beer.

But a new country single takes that process a step further: The deceased can now sing brand-new lyrics and melodies. Just ask Country Music Hall of Famer Conway Twitty.

Actually, Twitty won't answer. He passed away in 1993. But his disembodied voice recently recorded a new duet with country singer Anita Cochran, on a number she penned in 2002 called (I Wanna) Hear A Cheatin' Song.

''Every time I hear it, I get a big smile on my face and chills go through me,'' said Cochran, whose Twitty-assisted single is No. 57 on the Billboard country chart. ''It's the greatest thrill in the world. I saw him perform when I was a little girl.''

Over many months, Cochran and her co-producers — David Huff and (since-retired) Warner Bros. Nashville label chief Jim Ed Norman — combed through the recordings Twitty made on Warner Bros. from 1982-87. Words and syllables were clipped and pasted together in a computer-assisted process that ultimately created the illusion that Twitty was singing along to Cochran's song.

''The technology that allows things to be done today is amazing,'' said Twitty's widow, Dee Jenkins, who approved the duet at its conception and, months later, when she heard the final product. ''Jim Ed called me a year and a half ago and said he had a strange idea. Knowing Jim Ed and the type of person he is, I knew it would be done well. I know Conway would be flattered.''

Co-producer Huff said the process was neither simple nor efficient, but he was pleased to participate in a first-of-its-kind project.

''When she was asked 'Who would you like to do a duet with?' Anita's first response was 'Conway,' '' Huff said. ''In the old days, he's deceased, so there's no option. You'll get differing views on this, though, and some people think you're opening Pandora's box, like, 'Can we get Hank Williams Sr. to do all of Shania Twain's new hits?' I think you can misuse the technology.''

No one is claiming the Cochran-Twitty duet is akin to Williams and Twain joining for a generations-bridging Man, I Feel Like A Woman!, but opinions differ as to whether this use of technology is ethically pure and sonically believable.

At present, computers and engineers are unable to fully replicate the nuance and phrasing that are the hallmarks of a great singer, though Huff said that a few more years of progress could significantly improve the process' speed and outcome: ''When old black and white films were first colorized, it looked pretty cheesy,'' he said. ''A few years later, it started to look really natural.''

Jenkins is pleased with her husband's musical revival, and Norman said Twitty's part — which is only a few lines near the end of the recording — ''sounds natural.'' But, to country artist Vince Gill, the Twitty part does not convey the depth and richness of the Hall of Famer's earthly, earthy voice.

''It's bizarre,'' Gill said. ''I heard the song and I didn't recognize him. Taking a word, tuning it and placing it like that, I think it's really, really, really wrong. I love Conway, but I think he's got plenty of legacy for people to remember him by.''

George Jones, often called country music's greatest living vocalist, was impressed by Cheatin' Song's believability, but he does not hope for his own voice ever to be similarly transported.

''I'm amazed it could sound as good as it sounded, but I don't really think it's right,'' Jones said. ''I think we should let an artist rest in peace, and remember them by playing their music.'' But the record companies ''are going to do it if they can do it. It's one more way the (expletives) can make a dollar.''

After three weeks on the Billboard chart, the song is in regular rotation at relatively few radio stations, but it is getting some spins throughout the country (including, sporadically, at Nashville stations).

Julie Stevens, the program director at San Jose, Calif.'s KRTY, said, ''I can't see adding it (to the station's regular rotation), but how cool an idea is it that you could be dead for years and record a new song?''

Stevens is hardly alone in her enthusiasm for the idea, and Cochran said that Twitty's family's approval was the ultimate barometer of the single's good sense and good taste.

''These people know his voice better than anybody,'' Cochran said, of Twitty's wife and children. ''I would never want to do anything that would be distasteful, and we would never have done this if it hadn't been approved by his family. This was about getting Conway back out there. At times, he hasn't gotten the recognition he deserves.''

Country singer Jeff Bates' voice is at times eerily reminiscent of Twitty, whom he considers a musical idol. He was heartened by the new duet.

''I think it's the sweetest thing Anita could have done,'' Bates said. ''She did it because she really loves to hear him sing. It sounds exactly like what it is — like you took bits of vocals and you pieced 'em together and made him sing a song he'd never sung. You can tell that, but it's neat to get to hear Conway again. I think he would be flattered at the amount of love and work that went into this project.''

Grand Ole Opry star Jeannie Seely was untroubled by the notion that she might sing things in death that she never sang in life. ''To me, that is no different than, say, donating organs,'' Seely said. ''I would take it as an ultimate compliment. All of this technology could be a thing of the future. I guess if anyone has a problem with that, they might as well be changing their wills right now.''

Related story: The process of producing the Cochran/Twitty duet

Peter Cooper can be reached at 259-8220, or by e-mailed at pcooper@tennessean.com.

A real gray zone, this one. I'm fascinated by the technology (I'm a techie), but you have to wonder how appropriately it will be applied.

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I have been very heavily criticised by 3 people for using studio trickery to create my CDs.

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