Monk Turner
Monk Turner is an American musician, songwriter, and record producer. Known as the “galactic defender of the concept album”, Turner has created a number of multi-genre concept albums. He is known for winning the Free Music Archive's competition to create a copyright-free replacement for the song "Happy Birthday to You" whose rights were once owned by Time Warner.
Musical career
He often collaborates with other musicians: Kaleidoscope incorporated more than 40 artists internationally, and his narrative album Emergency Songs is a co-creation with singer and lyricist Alanna Lin. It imagines post-earthquake scenarios in Los Angeles, self-styled as “public safety through music and storytelling”. The track “Judicious Jason” from Instrumental Friends was the chosen soundtrack at the 2015 Blue Ribbon Children’s Festival, when 2,231 students made a Guinness World Record with history’s largest choreographed ribbon dance.Over the years Turner has released all of his albums via Creative Commons licenses “as a means to escape the constraints of traditional music composition / distribution”. He is a former Featured Commoner and has spoken alongside artists such as Curt Smith about the benefits of CC licenses for musicians and other content makers.