Development of Creative Commons licenses

[William Morgan <wmorgan-cc-licenses AT masanjin.net>]

Hello all,

I have a question which I don't think has been covered before---but
apologies in advance if it has. It concerns performing cover songs.

We are a bluegrass band with some audio files we'd like to distribute
under a CC license. The situation with bluegrass is a different from
that of most other genres, in that, in addition to performing originals,
artists typically also perform music drawn from a standard repetoire.
Some of the standard repetoire is traditional and in the public domain,
but some of the material is under copyright control, and performing
these songs is essentially akin to what is called performing "cover"
songs in other genres.

What is involved in applying a CC license to this type of material? Is
it enough to simply state that our copyright and licensing extends only
over the recording of the song, and not over the lyrics and composition?
Or must we procure some form of permission from the copyright holders
before applying a CC license (a feat which is essentially impossible for
us)? Or are we simply SOL in terms of releasing these recordings?

Thanks in advance for any help. I am not an expert in copyright issues
by any means, so I'm sorry if I'm making obvious mistakes in the above.

-- 
William <wmorgan-cc-licenses AT masanjin.net>