'IT'S ALL LIP-SYNCHED'

GORDON RUMSON muses on
best (or worst) practice in the music world

Author's Introduction

I wrote this article in January of 2005 just a few months after Ashlee Simpson's minor debacle. One attempt to have it published (at a West Coast leftist online journal) failed and I just put it away. With the recent Joyce Hatto scandal the issue seems somewhat alive again.

To recap that story: It seems that CDs have been released under the name Joyce Hatto that are actually recordings by other pianists. Almost daily, various mailing lists provide further identifications. For information on the first discovery see Joyce Hatto -- The Ultimate Recording Hoax.

I ask the reader's indulgence to the state of the essay -- which remains unchanged from 2005. But I think that the whole story has a rapidly approaching 'best before date'. Besides, who is the next trickster waiting just around the corner ... ?

Now there is also going to be a movie made of Milli Vanilli! With actors playing the roles of front men who mimed to the singing of others. There's a movie to be made on the Hatto story -- please excuse me if I don't try to write it.

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