Tunes for words

I've tried, and failed, to find out what the copyright situation is vis a vis recording words (as poetry) over material written by others but played by my own band. As no one has been able to come up with the answers (and I guess that means that to find out I'd have to pay a lawyer a lot of money) I've started writing my own tunes. This is hard as I really am not a musician and right now can't persuade my own musicians to play my tunes. (They only want to play music by 'real' musicians.) Still, I have been fortunate enough to have one of my melodies played, and improvised on by the Bob Stuckey trio at the Vortex open mic session. Great to hear it played properly (instead of just by band in the box!) Many thanks to Bob Stuckey, Jerome Davies and Cheryl Allyne. (I think I got that right.)

Angela