Talk:North to Alaska (song)

Song Writer Credit?

I have CDs and a vinyl record with the song.


 * Johnny Horton's 16 Biggest Hits, Columbia/Legacy (1999) CK 69971 lists M. Phillips as songwriter. Sony owns Columbia. (On a slightly different note, other sources say MAC not Mike Phillips)


 * Johnny Horton's Greatest Hits (1961 vinyl), Columbia CS8396 - lists M. Phillips


 * Classic Country Jukebox, Sommerset Enterprises, Universal Music (2011, 2008), 56653 B0011949-02, lists J. Horton and T. Franks as the songwriters.


 * The BMI (Broadcast Music Inc) database, also lists Johnny Horton and Tillman Ben Franks as the songwriter, here

http://repertoire.bmi.com/title.asp?blnWriter=True&blnPublisher=True&blnArtist=True&page=1&keyid=1084508&ShowNbr=0&ShowSeqNbr=0&querytype=WorkID

I'm willing to go with the vinyl record as the definitive source (I've had it in my possession since 1973), but I would think the BMI database, where they have to pay royalties to the songwriters to be a pretty good source! Not wanting to change anything, just wanted to point out there are discrepancies. DTavona (talk) 00:51, 2 February 2014 (UTC)


 * This has been a mystery to me, too, as I developed a pretty authoritative website about the Top 100 Western Songs. All I could find about the composer was Mike Phillips, but in spite of extensive research I couldn't find anything about him. I researched a biography of Tillman Franks, which mentioned the song and his close relationship to Johnny Horton, but said nothing about who wrote it. I can imagine that the confusion about authorship arose because Horton was killed in an accident about the time the song was released. BTW, the above link to the BMI site no longer works. This one seems to: BMI Source Lou Sander (talk) 05:19, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
 * According to the promo copies of single 4-41782 on which "North To Alaska" was released, the publisher was an ASCAP affiliate, Robbins Music Corp. (copyright later reassigned to Twentieth Century Music Corp.) It is very conceivable, theoretically, that "Mike Phillips" was a pseudonym used by Johnny Horton and Tillman Franks who were BMI members.  Yet IMDb does list a Mike Phillips who wrote the title theme to another 20th Century-Fox picture, Marines, Let's Go, plus a song in The Fool Killer (song "The Ballad of the Fool Killer"), as well as this song.  The ASCAP ACE database seems to suggest that Peter De Angelis and Russell Faith wrote it; the Catalog of Copyright Entries indicates "w & m Mike Phillips." –Wbwn (talk) 20:34, 18 September 2019 (UTC)