The Story of Fake Books: Bootlegging Songs to Musicians

Barry Kernfeld

Aug 2006 · Studies in Jazz Book 53 · Scarecrow Press

About this eBook

Fake books—anthologies of songs notated in a musical shorthand—have been used by countless pop and jazz musicians in both professional and amateur settings for more than half a century. The Story of Fake Books: Bootlegging Songs to Musicians traces the entertaining and previously unknown account of the origins of pop song fake books, which evolved through the bootlegging of a now obscure musical subscription service, the Tune-Dex. The book follows the history of fake books through their increased popularity among musicians to their prosecution by the government and the music industry, resulting in America's first full-blown federal trial for criminal copyright infringement. Through accounts given by jazz musicians Steve Swallow and Pat Metheny, The Story of Fake Books also reveals the definitive history of the most popular fake book, one that has acquired a legendary status among jazz musicians: an anthology of jazz tunes called The Real Book. Drawing from information in FBI files, entertainment trade papers, and federal court records, author Barry Kernfeld presents pioneering research, which brings together aspects of pop music history and copyright law to disclose this predecessor of current-day battles over pop song piracy.

About the author

Barry Kernfeld is a saxophonist, the editor of The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz (1988; 2nd ed., 2001), and the author of What to Listen for in Jazz (1995). He is also the staff archivist in the Historical Collections and Labor Archives within the Special Collections Library at the Pennsylvania State University.