![]() Boulder To Birmingham – Emmylou HarrisĤ9. Desperados Waiting For A Train – Guy Clarkĥ1. Garden Party – Rick Nelson, The Stone Canyon Bandĥ8. Perfect Skin – Lloyd Cole and the CommotionsĦ1. Sailing to Philadelphia – Mark Knopflerħ2. ![]() Which is just what we could do with this list… The 70s was the heyday of the singer-songwriter, but they are as meaningful today as they’ve ever been.Ĩ5. There’s Scott Walker’s ‘Such A Small Love’, from his debut solo album one of Canada’s finest songwriter-singers, Gino Vannelli and ‘Gypsy Days’ Nashville’s Gretchen Peters’ ‘Secret Of Life’, Clifford T Ward’s ‘Home Thoughts From Abroad’ and Stephen Bishop’s ‘On and On’. It also unearths some real gems by singer-songwriters who have crafted superb songs that forced their way into our list. It includes all the usual suspects, From Dylan, Eltonand Stevie to Carole King, Joni and Dolly. ![]() We have tried to come up with the ultimate playlist of the greatest songs performed and written by singer-songwriters. Somehow it feels like the tradition finally came full circle. Recently someone posted a video online of a guy with a guitar covering Stevie Wonder’s ‘Superstition’ on stage at a hotel, somewhere in America Stevie himself was in the hotel and he went on stage to join the unknown performer to sing his own composition. He, like so many performers, was trying to entertain and earn a crust… the covers band and covers singer is a proud tradition. But at the same time, never forget that when Johnson was playing juke joints and house rent parties, he would frequently cover the hits of Bing Crosby who was singing songs from the writers that frequented New York’s Tin Pan Alley. Add to that list Robert Johnson, who created a canon second to none of songs that have been covered by countless others ever since. Go back a little further and Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Willie McTell, Son House and others from the Mississippi Delta were doing just the same in the 30s. Even before that time, however, singers such as Hank Williams were forging a place in musical history where they wrote and performed their own songs, though they were often backed by a group, which causes some to forget that Williams was a true singer-songwriter. The political protest songs of Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie are what people thought of as singer-songwriters before Dylan, but by 1963 there was a subtle shift that accelerated as the 60s advanced. Dylan came out of the folk tradition, and it was the acoustic-folk genre that was – and remains – the spiritual home of the singer-songwriter, where performers tend to provide the sole accompaniment to an entire composition or song, typically using a guitar or piano.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |