Band Leaders and their orchestras

Well, it doesn’t sound surprising to me.
Seeing something that has the name of the artist I’m looking the discography of.
It’s what Artist Credit (AC) is all about, unless I missed something. :slight_smile:

I hope nobody is proposing this.

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I have a question regarding Henry Mancini. Most of his work is credited to “Henry Mancini”, “Henry Mancini & His Orchestra”, or “Henry Mancini, His Orchestra and Chorus”. I’m wondering whether we should leave it as 3 separate entities in MB, or if we should merge the two groups into HM & Orchestra and use artist credits to indicate those credited to …and Chorus.

For what it’s worth, I usually create two different artists: the conductor as a person, and an orchestra called “Conductor X’s Orchestra”, and then I use artist credits to make the artist look like it does on the release. Because choirs and orchestras are different artist types, I would have a “Henry Mancini”s Orchestra” and a “Henry Mancini’s Chorus”. With those artists you can easily have a release credited to Henry Mancini and His Orchestra en Chorus, using artist credits for three different artists.

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I’ve been replacing the old “Henry Mancini, His Orchestra & Chorus” and “Henry Mancini & His Orchestra” with artist credits of “Henry Mancini”, “The Henry Mancini Orchestra”, “The Henry Mancini Chorus”. I’ve done a few hundred already, but I just got a no vote on one of them. I’d like the community to weigh in on whether I should keep doing this, yea or nay.

https://musicbrainz.org/edit/44726701

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Well, my opinion on the subject hasn’t changed, so … please keep doing this. :slight_smile:

Is this something specific to Mancini? Or are you proposing it as a general rule? Is e.g. Bill Haley a “band leader”?

Generally, I think having “Jane Doe” and “Jane Doe & Her Band” with Jane Doe is a member of Jane Doe & Her Band is the way to do it. The complication as I see it is the multiple band credits. I also favor having different band entities (“Jane Doe & Her Band” along side “Jane Doe Orchestra”) where it looks like they could be different and not just a band name variation (“Jane Doe & sua banda”, PT). Of course if some one knowledgeable in the artist comes along and can bring the right info, I’ll go along with that. :wink:

I think it would have to be on a case by case basis. The question I think we should be asking is: Would the database or the website be easier for the “average listener” to use if you made this change?
In the case of Henry Mancini I think it is. Most people aren’t thinking of Moon River as a song by “Henry Mancini, His Orchestra and Chorus”, they’re thinking of it as a “Henry Mancini” song. So now it’s on Mancini’s discography, making it easier to find, but it’s still correctly credited.
An example of a group I don’t think would benefit from splitting and using artist credits would be “Simon & Garfunkel”. I’d say most people think of the group as separate from its members, and I doubt there’s a significant amount of people coming to the website and looking for Sounds of Silence in Paul Simon’s discography.
As for Bill Haley, I think a case could be made for splitting and recombining. We have “Bill Haley”, “Bill Haley & His Comets”, “Bill Haley and the Saddlemen”, “Bill Haley & Four Aces of Western Swing”, “Bill Haley’s Comets”, and “Bill Haley’s Comets with Joey Rand”. Breaking those up into their constituent parts would put all of Haley’s work and all the Comets’ work in their respective discographies. I could also see this treatment benefiting Elvis Costello & the Attractions, Bob Marley & the Wailers, and Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band.

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Hi, I have a question about Walter Hawkins & The Love Centre Choir.

Should it be listed under Walter Hawkins & The Love Center Choir ? Even Discogs is not consistent about that :


One thing is sure, Love Alive II is wrongly lised on Msuicbrainz as only Walter Hawkins but on Discogs it is listed either https://www.discogs.com/fr/Walter-Hawkins-And-The-Love-Center-Choir-Love-Alive-II/release/7168182 or https://www.discogs.com/fr/Walter-Hawkins-And-The-Love-Center-Choir-Love-Alive-II/release/2954448

I wouldn’t list “The Love Center Choir” separately unless they performed or released material as a standalone unit, i.e. without Walter Hawkins’ name attached.

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…or unless the same group also served as a backup group for another leader.

I think it is correct that the Love Alive release would be better credited to Walter Hawkins & The Love Centre Choir. However, if the Amazon link is correct, then this release doesn’t correspond to either of those discogs entries, which are both LPs, but rather to one of the CD rereleases (in which case the release date is wrong).

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