[Dixielandjazz] 1925 Riverboat Shuffle

[Dick Baker]

The story of its originally being "Free Wheeling" is like the ODJB 
"War Cloud" story:  Yes, evidently Hoagie referred to it as "Free 
Wheeling" early on, but it was never copyrighted under that title, 
and it wasn't recorded under that title until Artie Shaw did so in 
1937.  By then it had been recorded a dozen times as "Riverboat 
Shuffle" (or, as Isham Jones's recorded had it, "River Boat Shuffle."

And if you'll the rest of the fine print at the bottom of the link 
you found (I had found a different version of the same thing), you'll 
see that it does say copyright 1925--but then goes on to add, 
"Republished containing new copyright matter [i.e., the lyrics by 
Parish], 1939."

So this is the 1939 edition.  I had presumed that the 1925 
reregistration to include Dick Voynow and Irving Mills to the credits 
was because it was published that way, but it may just be because 
almost all the early record labels carried those credits.  Very first 
recording was by the Wolverine Orchestra in 1924, and that label 
credited just Carmichael.  But then came Isham Jones, the Cotton Club 
Orchestra, the Benson Orchestra in 1925 with labels crediting 
Voynow-Carmichael-Mills.  More records from 1927 (Frankie Trumbauer) 
through the early 1930s all credited Voynow-Carmichael-Mills.  And 
isn't it odd that Dick Voynow kept getting top billing over Hoagie Carmichael?

Scott Anthony wrote:
>I remember reading somewhere that the original title of "Riverboat 
>Shuffle" was "Freewheeling" or "Freewheelin'". Maybe that's the 
>title that was copywritten in 1925???

And later added
>The sheet found here says copyright 1925:
>http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/metsnav/hoagy/navigate.do;jsessionid=DDF1879080906EEE23C4BD0EEDD95254?pn=1&size=large&oid=http%3A%2F%2Ffedora.dlib.indiana.edu%2Ffedora%2Fget%2Fiudl%3A24274%2FMETADATA
>


--Dick Baker
Working on an updated version of the Stomp Off Records Tune Titles 
and Composers Index
See working draft at http://dickbaker.org/stompoff/index.pdf