Has anyone heard a recording of 9:20 Special with lyrics? I’m trying to find some (non-circular) documentation of the language and lyricist and coming up empty.
The original work and credit was added along with a recording of the song by Glenn Miller (can’t swear it’s the same, but this is the only one I can find, which is also instrumental as far as I can tell). The lyricist credit specifically was added later.
When I search “William Engvick 9:20 Special” I get the Wiki page, the second hand songs page, a few youtube videos that aren’t there anymore, the MusicBrainz page, and then mostly stuff related to those 3 sources. The Wikipedia page was created December 2012, so the MusicBrainz page precedes it. The only reference on wiki besides MusicBrainz is to here.
This page names Earle Warren as the composer and Lavere “Buster” Harding as the arranger. That’s it.
What do you all think?
Added: There was some discussion to similar effect at Second Hand Songs. They refer to this page as a source. Following that trail gets us here, where the track is credited to Warren and two members of the Delta Rhythm Boys group, so it still doesn’t explain where the credit to Engvick comes from.
Start from 2017-01-13 07:59 UTC when they add a new Work for 9:20 special, then scroll up and you’ll see they add a Wikipedia reference at the same time as the lyric and composer credits. Next day they merge this into the original work.
It doesn’t answer your question, but puts context around the credit being added.
Actually, no, but the fact that William Engvick¹ is amongst the writers indicates it had. It’s not uncommon that songs are almost solely known in their instrumental interpretation. So, it is possible that the 9:20 Special recordings should all have an “instrumental” attribute.
¹) Engvick is confirmed by ISWC
EDIT: It is possible that Engvick was omitted on some releases because there was no contribution to an instrumental performance. There is also the question of how Jack Palmer was involved (arranger?). I would make them all writers (I think it was a song).
Strange: if I search for “9 20 special” in the title, only T-071.067.410-4 is found, although T-926.374.098-3 has seemingly the same title, and T-070.242.511-3 includes it as AT
T-070.242.511-3 (Warren/Harding) could be an instrumental arrangement, but anyway, I don’t think it should be a separate work on MB.
Most of the writing credits I found credit Warren/Palmer/Engvick (actually, most releases have no or no documented writing credit) - t̶h̶a̶t̶’̶s̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶b̶a̶b̶l̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶b̶e̶s̶t̶ ̶c̶h̶o̶i̶c̶e̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶M̶B̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶k̶.̶ …see below
All of the earlier singles that I’ve looked at so far (from Basie and others) only credit Warren.
…
Here’s an earlier one (1946) that credits Engvick, not Palmer. It’s also instrumental; the difference between it and some others are that it’s a solo piano arrangement.
Now, to summarize what you found out: the original recording was instrumental, it was composed by Warren only, and Engvick was introduced as an additional writer (or arranger, though it sounds unlikely) in 1946 for another instrumental version.
The only known version with lyrics was certainly later and not written by Engvick.
Palmer appeared much later and wrote probably an arrangement, if those credits are at all accurate. There’s no reason to believe that writing credits were more reliable in those days than they are today.
And ISWC information is really a mess (as noted in the initial statement of the Secondhandsongs discussion).
Thank you for your research! Very interesting. Unfortunately, I have very little time for that at the moment.
Yeah, my sense is certainly that the original was instrumental and something happened with Engvick between 1941 and 1946. Still haven’t identified a performance with lyrics but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. (It’s so much harder to prove a negative than a positive, lol.)
I’m debating it. The sticking point now is logistical.
Even though the vast majority of recordings are instrumental, many of those have the Engvick credit anyway (Glenn Miller, Art Tatum, etc). So then which work should they be attached to?
There’s also the question of determining which recordings not otherwise marked are in fact instrumental. Probably many could be tracked down, but that’s a big undertaking.
I’m not convinced about that one; I’d have to give it a closer look but I think that artist credit was for the whole album rather than a specific performance.
For now I’ve updated the annotation with a better summary and links to the copyright entries. Maybe a second work could be added with some disambiguations used to clarify that one is vocal and one is instrumental?
