Borrowed Music?

The Big Three - "The Banjo Song" (1963)

The Shocking Blue - "Venus" (1970)

quote:

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Did Chris Stapleton borrow Etta James music from I'd Rather Go Blind when he wrote Tennessee Whiskey?

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The simple answer is "no" since Stapleton has no songwriting credit on this song. The Traveller album lists Dean Dillon and Linda Hargrove who wrote the original version that David Allan Coe recorded (and later George Jones). It seems Chris made kind of a mash up by taking the lyrics from the DAC version and adapting it to the Etta James song (written by Ellington Jordan, Etta James and Billy Foster). It would be interesting to know if some not-for-public deal was struck, somehow a compulsory license was attained or some musicologist was able to determine that what Stapleton used was somehow int he public domain (seems unlikely)