There's a story well-known among classical music aficionados but perhaps not so widely circulated elsewhere.

The violinist Fritz Kreisler claimed to have found long lost compositions by Vivaldi, Pugnani Tartini and others (note: Kreisler lived at the 19th-20th century, while the 'discovered' works dated back to the Baroque period, 200 years earlier). He recorded and performed these works to universal acclaim. Critics were later confounded to learn that these "discovered" works were actually fakes - written by Kreisler himself. Kreisler explained that the works had more credibility with the old Baroque names associated with them - and the acclaim spoke for itself. If all critics raved about the quality of these works, then they must be good music no matter who wrote it.

This would certainly not be the last time that music credits might be deliberately fudged.

For example, Buddy Holly's manager and producer, Norman Petty, insisted that his name be included as a songwriter in many of the Crickets' compositions; not because he had any hand in writing them, but because (or so he claimed) his name carried some influence among the record labels of the day, and would therefore grease the wheels in getting Holly airply and signed to a label. It also meant that Petty enjoyed substantial royalties from Holly's hits, even (or perhaps especially) after Holly's untimely death.

Session musicians - those who make their living playing recording sessions, usually the most versatile, technically capable and musically literate of most musicians, are probably the greatest community of musical 'ghosts' to be found. Typical recording sessions in early 1960's London had a few session pros waiting in the wings while the promising new band of the day struggled through their material. If, say, the guitarist wasn't performing well enough for the microscope of studio recording, the producer would call in the session pro to play the band member's part...usually uncredited, of course. Curiously, two of the busiest session players of the day made up half of what would later become Led Zeppelin, and Jimmy Page is obviously the lead guitarist on, for example, a number of early Kinks hits. For that matter, I'd even say it's Pagey on the Rolling Stones' "One Hit to the Body" (1986), despite the session being two decades after Page stopped playing sessions for a living. Of course, I have only my ears to go by in that particular case. Meanwhile, rumours abound about how often Ringo Starr actually performed on Beatles studio tracks. Everybody loves a mystery.

My favourite case of misleading credits would have to be Boston's first album. If you read the original liner notes, you'd come away believing that five guys played and sang on the record - and it certainly sounds like at least that many people are playing the songs, considering the veritable choir of backing vocals, intricately orchestrated guitar parts, and a high level of technical musicianship on all instruments, including Hammond organ (well...some drummers might argue that point with me - fair enough). There are also two producers credited with that massively successful recording.

In truth, band mastermind Tom Scholz recorded all the bass parts, nearly all guitar tracks, and organ; all vocal parts were handled by one man - the late, great Brad Delp. I don't envy that band trying to pull off those tunes live, but somehow they managed. Scholz also produced all but one of the tunes. Why the subterfuge? A) because Epic Records wanted to market Boston as a band rather than a duo doing everything themselves, and B) the record company hadn't actually allowed Scholz to produce the sessions himself - so Scholz recorded all but one of the tunes on the sly in his home studio in Boston while the remainder of the band conducted the 'fake' sessions (on only one tune) in LA with the ostensible producer. The result was the biggest-selling debut album in history. All's well that ends well.

This brings me to my own bit of credit-fudging on Mike Luno Band and Devil You Don't recordings. I can unequivocally say that all drums are performed by Curtis Leippi, and all guitars and lead vocals are mine. After that, things get a little sketchier.

We recorded the bed tracks (drums, bass and rhythm guitar) for the Devil You Don't cd shortly after George Koenig joined the band in 1999. Talk about a pressure studio gig! George nailed nearly all the tunes, but we brought in his predecessor, David Augustin, for two tunes (and a third that just didn't fit the album stylistically - no fault of George). Strangely, the back cover features a photo that includes Chris van Sickle, (who joined the band after the cd was recorded) and omits Wendell Clanton, who simply didn't show up for the photo shoot, but contributed all keyboard, a few backing vocals, and shaken goat-hooves (!). The tunes appear on the CD arranged very closely to the way they were arranged on my original demos, but I relinquished production credits on that album because I didn't think the mix quite reflected what I was after. In retrospect, I was probably being far too nit-picky, and our Producer, who took the professional name 'One', was nominated for Best Producer/Engineer for that album in the Island Music Awards. Well-deserved.

Things are about as mis-labelled for 'Get Inside'. Trevor is listed as the bassist, but the cd was actually recorded before he joined the band. The lion's share of bass tracks were laid down by George, with the remainder by me (I actually love playing bass). All vocals are mine. Otherwise, the credits are accurate. Motives for the mis-labelling were about the same as they had been for the first Boston record - at the time, Trevor was a current, fully-fledged member, so it made sense to list him as the bassist. I was actually breathing a sigh of relief that he didn't demand his own bass tracks on the cd (nothing against his playing- it just would have been a lot of work added onto what had already been years of work). Now that Trev is no longer with us, I can iron out this little credit-crease. We were lucky to work with two monster bass players, but we ultimately recorded with only one. You can catch Trev's playing on our live videos, though, and the man gigs around town constantly with Bang!, Hot Lucy and others. Well worth catching.

These days, the most ubitquitous uncredited  ghost of the recording world is probably that hot session cat Mr. Auto Tune. Happy to say I've never been introduced to him, and hope never to be.