"Hold Tight, Hold Tight (Want Some Seafood Mama)", commonly known as "Hold Tight", is a 1938 Sidney Bechet song, composed by Bechet's guitarist Leonard Ware and two session singers with claimed contributions from Bechet himself. The song became known for what at the time were considered suggestive lyrics, and then for a series of lawsuits over songwriter royalties.[1][2]
History
Bechet recorded the song in his first recording session as bandleader with Ware and "The Two Fishmongers" as vocalists - uncredited but later identified as Willie Spottswood and Eddie Robinson.[3]
At the same time two white dancers, Jerry Brandow and Lenny Kent, had approached the Andrews Sisters' manager Lou Levy with the song, claiming it was a traditional jazz tune, and five days after Bechet's recording, the Andrews Sisters recorded the song - with cleaner lyrics and a modified introduction, as "Hold Tight-Hold Tight (Want Some Sea Food Mama)," with Jimmy Dorsey's band. Their recording was a considerable hit, followed by another notable version by Fats Waller a few months later in January 1939.
Waller's gravelly voice and the double entendre lyrics contributed to the song's success.[4]
Although the song had been played around jazz clubs for years, the Andrews Sisters hit provoked the first royalty cases - the royalties being awarded to the two dancers who had "discovered" the song, Brandow and Kent, then to Bechet's recording session team: guitarist Leonard Ware and singers Eddie Robinson, and Willie Spottswood. Other claims for parts of the song were made by Sy Oliver, Count Basie, Gene Krupa, the singer Jerry Kruger, and trumpeter Taps Miller. However, Sidney Bechet continued to claim the lyrics, which he argued had been written back in 1924, but that pianist Clarence Williams had decided not to publish and register the lyrics as they were then considered too suggestive. Eventually the two dancers Brandow and Kent were removed from the song's copyright, and the Catalog of Copyright Entries of the Library of Congress Copyright Office (1968) lists the copyright for "Hold Tight, Hold Tight (Want Some Seafood Mama)" as only "Leonard W. Ware, Willie Spottswood & George Robinson."[5]
"Meanwhile another storm was gathering about Sidney's head. It concerned the song 'Hold Tight,' for which Bechet was claiming part-authorship. Sensitive guardians of public morals claimed that the song's message was sexual"
"Swing magazine reported in its issue of June 1939: "So many suits on Hold Tight, now 'Taps' Miller, coloured musician, has an injunction restraining payment of royalties to any of the writers until he's proved he wrote the song, in court."
"In fact, just five days before the Andrews Sisters cut the song, it was recorded for the first time by the New Orleans clarinet and soprano saxophone master Sidney Bechet, at Bechet's first recording session as a bandleader.
... and after considerable dispute, composers' royalties were awarded to Brandow, Kent, Ware, Robinson, and Spottswood. But others continued to claim credit for at least parts of the song, among them Sy Oliver, Count Basie, Gene Krupa, singer Jerry Kruger, dancer and trumpeter Taps Miller, and Sidney Bechet, who explained that Clarence Williams had deemed the lyrics too lewd to publish in 1924."
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