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Was this the biggest Music scam ........ever, and classical .....really

I hate to be the Debbie Downer, but I think the guy was a scam artist through and through. To make this a true love story, he should have contracted a professional pianist to record as a ghost musician and given the performance credit to his wife.

I'm responsible for a couple of famous "scams" in the polka industry, but they were all humorous, innocuous, and 100% legal.
 
1. In 2001, I recorded an album using a piano accordion that was tuned like a button box, and played it much like how a diatonic button box player would perform, except I sneaked in a couple things that can't be played on a diatonic button box, just for fun. I released it under a pseudonym and created a whole website to go with it complete a family biography, photos, schedule of fictitious venues and cities, fictitious band members, and everything else. Everyone in the industry fell for it. Over a thousand copies of the CD sold.

2. Around 2007, I created a cheesy song using the auto-accompaniment of a cheap keyboard and released it under the pseudonym of a farmer husband and wife duo. The song lyrics lightheartedly poked fun at all the rural, two-piece husband & wife duos who actually use keyboard auto-accompaniment to perform in the polka band circuit, much to the chagrin of polka bands. I made about 150 copies, drove down to Davenport, IA, and mailed them out to polka radio stations and bandleaders all over the country. I was officially "busted" when one polka bandleader who fell for the gag was in my studio recording, and found a copy of the song's lyrics I had accidentally left sitting in the vocal booth. The song didn't actually take off, however, until I re-released it on another CD a few years later. Now there are several bands around the country that play it. Everyone now knows it was my song, but no one knows who the vocalists are. That information can never be revealed.
 
I think what is astonishing is a strong sense of self denial that he had scanned any one, I think that the strong dental even effected the program producer to the point they did not out right say he committed any wrong but used words like "only he knows what was done " or " only he knows what happened" almost still giving him the benefit of the dought,

Even when he said the recording was done in his garden shed, the question was how did an orchestra fit in the shed in the first place.
 
That was a very famous scam, but besides stealing from so many pianists that really worked hard their way to the classical record industry (a lifetime effort), I honestly pity this poor old man. Specially if he didn't even made a significant amount of money, then he made all that out of... love maybe? It really looks like this man believe his own lies, so again, I pity him.
 
If you read up on Barrington-Coupe's dubious past its a surprise anyone believed him. He had a track record of releasing recordings using made up names or reissuing recordings copied from radio broadcasts.

He also ended up in the longest-running and most expensive trial at the Old Bailey, costing the British taxpayer £150,000 at the time for not paying tax on sales.

So not so sure this is not just a continuation of his addiction to passing off works.
 
1. In 2001, I recorded an album using a piano accordion that was tuned like a button box, and played it much like how a diatonic button box player would perform, except I sneaked in a couple things that can't be played on a diatonic button box, just for fun. I released it under a pseudonym and created a whole website to go with it complete a family biography, photos, schedule of fictitious venues and cities, fictitious band members, and everything else. Everyone in the industry fell for it. Over a thousand copies of the CD sold.

2. Around 2007, I created a cheesy song using the auto-accompaniment of a cheap keyboard and released it under the pseudonym of a farmer husband and wife duo. The song lyrics lightheartedly poked fun at all the rural, two-piece husband & wife duos who actually use keyboard auto-accompaniment to perform in the polka band circuit, much to the chagrin of polka bands. I made about 150 copies, drove down to Davenport, IA, and mailed them out to polka radio stations and bandleaders all over the country. I was officially "busted" when one polka bandleader who fell for the gag was in my studio recording, and found a copy of the song's lyrics I had accidentally left sitting in the vocal booth. The song didn't actually take off, however, until I re-released it on another CD a few years later. Now there are several bands around the country that play it. Everyone now knows it was my song, but no one knows who the vocalists are. That information can never be revealed.

Some could be tempted to hire you for some marketing ploy... ;)
 
I watched the whole video. What a sad old deluded git con artist.
He should have been sued for every penny.
There should be no sympathy for him - he spins all those pathetic sob stories.
What about all the artists that he ripped off? It is hard enough protecting copyright.
The music business should have no place for rip offs like this.
Interesting that he was rumbled because a tag with the original artist's name was left in the file and appeared on someones mp3 player! So he might have been quite clever not not clever enough.
 
I heard Barry is re-releasing the recordings with just the close mics... the room mics and artist mixes are coming later.
You get a really good discount if you already own a hundred a more of Hatto's originals.
 
There are numerous scams where famous composers have taken traditional folk tunes and registered them under their name. Allegedly (don't want to get into trouble here) the names Simon & Garfunkel (Scarborough Fair) as well as Harry Belafonte (numerous) have allegedly been uttered.... ahem....
Vanilla Ice claiming that their song Ice Ice Baby had nothing to to with Under Pressure was a hilarious case:



Duke Ellington's early publisher, Irving Mills, insisted all tracks have him as composer listed, even though Irving Mills could not write music, and to this day these tunes are credited to Irving Mills in the official Real Book, it goes on and on....

Grahame Alexander Bell did not actually invent the telephone, nope, he stole the invention:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/jun/17/humanities.internationaleducationnews

... in the world of Art Marcel Duchamp's very famous urinal was very probably not created by him at all but by a little known female artist:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-chafin/duchamps-urinal_b_1472735.html

...
 
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