Early Blues and Jazz Authorship in the Case of the “Livery Stable Blues”

ABSTRACT A 1917 copyright lawsuit over sheet music pursuant to the Original Dixieland Jazz Band’s first commercially successful record revealed challenges in determining legal authorial attribution and ownership for musicians more accustomed to communal creative processes. The case unearthed a network of at least ten eligible musicians, but it was eventually dismissed, such that no musician could be legally recognized as author – a decision that left many wondering: who created “Livery Stable Blues”? By examining extant court documents, this article demonstrates how distributed authorship models can facilitate more acute understandings of creative processes in early blues and jazz.