about artists recycling their own songs/melodies/chords structures etc....
Of course it was very often made by bluesmen, and early rocknroll musicians like Chuck Berry.
But it seems it was a common practice before that time, during the 19th century
the french author-composer-singer Georges Brassens dit it with "la prière" and "il n'y a pas d'amour heureux"
and aslo with "Le nombril des femmes d'agents", "Carcassonne " and "La chaude pisse"
he explained in an interview that in the nineteenth century,there were circulated basic melodies (a bit like the blues in jazz) on which the singers could stick the words they had composed. These all-purpose melodies were called "tones".
The tones were used until the 50s in France, especially by the "chansonniers of the Grenier de Montmartre" (on the Paris Inter Radio) who wrote or even improvised topical couplets on standard tunes, and then audience took up the refrains.
But seeing that what he had sought to resurrect was misunderstood, ("Who is this slacker who serves us two songs on the same tune?") Brassens did not repeat the experiment.
http://www.analysebrassens.com/?page=texte&id=34&%23
