Talk:Singer-songwriter

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Hmm. Not sure I like this definition or the list.

It seems to me that the singer-songwriter, as a musical institution, can probably be traced back about as far as Bob Dylan and Tom Paxton (who should both be on the list, along with Eric Andersen) and maybe a little farther. To me, the defining nature of the singer-songwriter is the greater focus on lyrical content rather than instrumentation and vocal harmony. To put it more bluntly, most of the singer-songwriter recordings had poor production values and, well, terrible vocal work. Eric Andersen went so far as to rerecord his "'Bout Changes and Things" after he had more money and could hire better studio talent.

In contrast, the more polished artists, such as John Denver, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, some of whom are on the article's list, were known for the quality of the recordings themselves, many of which were written by others. While John Denver, for example, wrote a good deal of his own material, he also recorded songs by Bob Dylan, Tom Paxton, and Eric Andersen, none of whom recorded anything ever written by Denver. Similarly, Judy Collins made a hit out of Thirsty Boots, which was written by Eric Andersen, and Peter, Paul, & Mary made a hit out of Paxton's "Puff the Magic Dragon" and several other songs he wrote.UninvitedCompany

You're plain wrong on the last bit. "Puff the Magic Dragon" was written by Peter, Paul and Mary's own Peter Yarrow. They did however record other songs by Paxton (e.g. "Going to the Zoo"). I agree with your point in general though. -MrFizyx 19:00, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] US-Centric

Currently almost 100% USA-Centric.Graham 07:17, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It's not really too much of a problem, nor is it really anyones fault. It just so happens that nearly all of the people who contributed to this list are focused on American singer-songwriters. If you know of some foreign singer-songwriters, add their names.TheGhostChild 16:14, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Assertion

The article contained the bold assertion that:

The most successful independent singer-songwriter is Buffalo-based Ani DiFranco.

At the moment, this statement is meaningless. "Most succesful" how? Reputation, chart position, record sales, what? "Most succesful" ever? Or in which year? In the U.S. or worldwide? And so on. -- 80.168.224.145 16:54, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] ROHA's edits

I just thought i'd see what this guy has been editting, and he seems to like killing the lead sections of articles. ROHA prefers leads which are a single sentence, contrary to what Wikipedia:Lead section appears to agree on - Leads are supposed to be a mini-entry on the article, not a dictionary definition. I am not going to replace the lead, because having 6 or 7 paragraphs isn't good either. I'm just going to leave it alone with this note :). SECProto 15:12, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Problematic Edit

Is this supposed to be what it is? I think we have a problem, unless this is the fancy new definition of singer-songwriter.

I am a Customized Song Writer. I write songs to help people with their lives. If you need a song written for your love and tears, I will write your song.

I've taken the liberty to return it to the most recently edited version by Tawkerbot. If anybody has a problem with it, tell me. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.110.132.130 (talk • contribs).

[edit] Mariah Carey

Shouldn't Mariah Carey be mentioned as the songwriter with the most number ones in the US? I guess she has written 15 of the 17 songs that went number one... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 193.227.174.1 (talk • contribs).

Mariah Carey is a pop singer, which is quite different than singer/songwriter. wrp103 (Bill Pringle) 16:56, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Yeah. I seriously doubt that Mariah Carey did anything but sing and maybe change a line or two of the lyrics. She is not a singer-songwriter. She would have to (gasp) write songs for that to be her title.TheGhostChild 16:18, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
No, that is not true at all. Mariah is very much a singer-songwriter. She has written all her material since 1990 and won a handful of awards for her songwriting. Also, why is a pop singer quite different than a singer-songwriter? A singer-songwriter is anyone who sings and writes their music, regardless of genre. --Musicpvm 21:29, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Actually, the term singer/songwriter (as I know it) refers to a genre of music that appears in coffee houses, church basements, etc. doing songs that are not pop in nature. Although people tend to keep including more and more artists to this article, some of whom I would not really consider singer-songwriter, I think it is important to distinguish between a singer-songwriter and a singer and/or writer of pop music.wrp103 (Bill Pringle) 02:26, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
If this aritcle is concentrating on only the "genre", it should be clarified in the intro, so people aren't confused as someone can interpret "Singer-songwriter" in two different ways. Currently, there are hundreds of artists that link to this page who are not "traditional" singer-songwriters. --Musicpvm 01:58, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Needs more internationalisation

Article completely ignores french speaking chansonniers (Brassens, Brel, Ferré, Leclerc, Vigneault, etc) for example, and those go back to the 1950's at least. Not being an expert, I can't really write it myself, I'm sure plenty of other countries have their own singer-songwriter traditions which should be mentioned here. --70.81.13.192 02:24, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

You can add what you mention above. You don't need to be an expert to add something. There are always people that will come behind you and change/add to whatever you start. If we waited for "experts" there would be tons of stubs. ;^) wrp103 (Bill Pringle) 21:35, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Clean up

This is what I see to be the weakest part of the page:

The format of a singer-songwriter concert is frequently a solo artist performing their own works, possibly with a backup band, introducing each song with some explanation of its origin, meaning, etc. For the most part, these are fairly serious songs with personal meaning to the artist. In some cases, most notably Cheryl Wheeler, Christine Lavin, and Vance Gilbert, significant humor is incorporated into these songs and/or presentations. (Wheeler was offered a stand up comic gig at one point, and Christine Lavin once broke her nose while twirling a baton during a show.) Many fans personally relate to the songs, and are generally more likely to know all the lyrics than fans of pop or rock music. Frequently it is the lyrics, rather than the melody or beat of a song, or even the voice of the artist that attracts the fans.

One flourishing aspect of this genre is largely invisible: the indie singer-songwriter. The solo artist format, less expensive on tour and in the studio, fosters "indie" artists who enjoy limited fame and longer careers than most major-label artists. A number of recording labels such as Folkways, Rounder, etc. catered to smaller but devoted customer bases. Some major recording labels also introduced "indie"-flavored labels to capture some of this market.

This is a difficult page to get right - the name of the genre is so all encompassing - but so far it fails.Damiancorrigan 21:48, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chan Marshall

Can she get a mention? Does anyone mind if I add her to the late 90's singer songwriters???

Please sign your posts on talk pages per Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages. Thanks! Hyacinth 21:11, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
I just looked at the article on Chan Marshall (whom I'd previously not heard of). Most of the artists on the 1990s paragraph of the North America section would be well-described by the singer-songwriter genre that folks associate with the folk club and festival circuit. It would appear that she doesn't fit in that sense. Then again, I wouldn't have added Cara Jones or Conor Oberst either. There still seems to be some question as to whether this article is about the folk genre handed down from Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Tom Paxton, etc. OR if it is simply relating to any artist who both sings and writes songs. -MrFizyx 18:46, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
I mentioned this is the next section. I believe the article should be stripped down considerably. We already have a page List of singer-songwriters, which is where people can add the names of the favorite singer/songwriters. I believe it should be limited to the kinds of performers you would see on the coffee-house / folk festival circuit. wrp103 (Bill Pringle) 19:07, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, then we should be bold and strip it down, otherwise the article seems rather pointless. The list you mentioned is also in rather bad shape. Any system that classifies Barry Manilow and David Rovics together is quite broken. -MrFizyx 19:25, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Out of Control

The lists on this page are getting out of control. This page should not be a checklist of every singer-songwriter anybody knows. Maybe somebody can start a "List of Singer/Songwriters" page and move most of the entries to there? I just looked at the list of artists that supposedly self-produced recordings and find a number of artists that are on smaller labels such as Rounder. Ani DiFranco has her own label, but many of the others do not. wrp103 (Bill Pringle) 13:38, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Rather than a list page, wouldn't it be better if folks just add names to Category:Singer-songwriters? -MrFizyx 18:27, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleaning-up

I've removed a bunch of names. I've made clear what I was doing in the edit history though, so feel to go back and dispute these if needed. Some I removed were red links, although the artists do fit the genre (e.g. Tom Prasada-Rao). I've also removed some artists who are obviously talented singers and songwriters (e.g. indie-pop sensation Sufjan Stevens) that don't fit the genre "singer-songwriter." There is, however, still a lot that needs to be reconciled within other parts of the article. -MrFizyx 20:00, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I have done a major rewrite of the introduction section. Hopefully, this will set the parameters for the page, and prevent the creep of adding questionable new artists. Assuming everyone agrees with my definition of a singer-songwriter, I will start to go through the rest of the article to strip it down and clean it up a bit. wrp103 (Bill Pringle) 13:51, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

A few thoughts:

  1. Should the section on "North America" really be "North America and the United Kingdom," or maybe "Western Culture," (though I don't much care for the later). Don't Richard Thompson, Dougie MacLean and Billy Bragg greatly influence and interact with the artists in this genre? Isn't the European audience for this genre just as great as in The States? There is already a section on the Beatles influence.
  2. How significant is the claim of influence on this genre by Peter Frampton, Don Henley and Glen Frey? (I think most songwriters would try like hell not to sound like the Eagles.)
  3. The 1980s section points out a number of genre female artist who crossed-over to find comercial success at that time. This is mostly true, but we need to make clear that the bulk of artist have remained outside of the main-stream in the genre's own niche.
  4. I certainly don't like saying that the term was revived in the 1990s by Alanis Morissette. The genre never really has gone away and I'm not sure what the place of a rocker like Morissette would be.
  5. How important is Pro Tools really? Would it be better to say production costs are down and leave it at that?

Comments? -MrFizyx 19:15, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Broader definition

Even though this article concentrates on the specific genre, it really should mention the broader definition of the term "singer-songwriter" in the intro. Many musicians who are not "traditional" singer-songwriters but do sing and write and/or compose their music are linked to this article. The term is very commonly used to refer to musicians of any genre (pop, rock, r&b, etc) who sing and write their own songs. Even one additional sentence will do. I tried clarifying this in the intro a few months ago, but my edits were removed. --musicpvm 03:45, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

The term is very commonly used incorrectly, especially on Wikipedia. You are correct though, there are singer-songwriters of many styles (folk, country, pop, rock, blues, and yes, even r&b). If we can offer a well-referenced and somewhat narrow definition, we can help educate editors who would apply the definition to pop stars who hire a whole army of co-writers. I'm willing to broaden the scope a bit, but this does need to be done with some care. I'll work on this. -MrFizyx 17:50, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
Nevertheless, the current definition, so insistent on a folk music background and framework for S/S, is too narrow and much of the rest of the article is at odds with it. (For example, a good half of the key artists mentioned do indeed use drums in their seminal recordings). Jgm 19:37, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
True, I don't agree with everything in the current revision, and the sources I'm finding vary widely on these things too. We may have pushed the folk POV a bit. Also, I think we have too many "key artists," people keep adding (especially "emerging artists") and sometimes my efforts to trim cause feedback (one singer-songwriter even came to my talk page to complain. I'd be happy for someone else to consider acting on this). Keep adding suggestions, pointing out problem areas is helpful. -MrFizyx 19:56, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I also agree the definition of singer songwriter is too narrow. I have always thought singer songwriters were people who write songs and perform them, regardless of genre, and certainly of subject matter. How are the finer definition in the article actually substantiated? Dndn1011 15:40, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

I would say that it might be applied to a broader range of performers who are known primarily for songwriting. The definition of the genre here is mostly accurate, but needs better in-line sourcing and some small corrections. Maybe you could take a look through the external links. The all music guide category "contemporary singer-songwriter" includes a fairly specific category of people all of whom got their start (and many continue) by playing small folk venues and folk festivals. Modern artists have many influences and cross genres frequently, but this is an art form that has been supported primarily by grass-roots folk music communities for decades. -MrFizyx 13:09, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
There is a real problem with associating Singer-Songwriters with Folk Music. The problem stems from the fact that (as least in the UK) folk music is supposed to mean "tradidional" music - at least to certain groups. Many a singer songwriter can relate to the problem of singing their songs at folk clubs, to find a frosty atmosphere. Folk Music in itself has become somewhat meaningless as a term. The rules at various clubs conflict even within themselves (I have observed situations where members of a club have talked at length about folk music being traditional, yet the club itself is mad keen on a contemporary american singer songwriter wuch as Tom Paxton.
Another thing to note is that Singer Songwriters from around the sixties onwards found themselves playing at Folk Clubs, because this was the only real outlet at the time. However, they probably never really thought of themselves as folk singers. For example, David Bowie started out on the folk circuit (he made an appearance at Orpington Folk Club for example). However, to call David Bowie a folk artist would be pushing it. John Martyn also started out as a "folk singer songwriter" but very quickly evolved out of the genre. Both of these artists are Singer Songwriters because they sing their own songs. If we deny this, then we need to invent a new term to cover artists that sing their own songs but are not "folk".
These days there are many more outlets available for Singer Songwriters, such as Open Mikes and clubs that run in a similar way to folk clubs but call themselves "acoustic music clubs" or "folk and roots" or "acoustic roots". They go out of their way to invent some term that is not Folk because that really does mean something very specific most of the time - the performance of "traditional" music. Although as I said it does depend on who you ask.
Thus I submit that the definition of a singer songwriter should simply be someone that performs their own songs either in public or on recordings, without regard to style or genre. Personally I do not stop being a singer songwriter because I write a Jazz tune and play it with my band, as an example. The next day I might play the same song at a folk club or acoustic roots club. I remain a singer songwriter regardless.
If you write your own song and then sing it somehow, then you are a singer songwriter. This does not mean that we can't describe tendancies for singer songwriters to write in certain styles, of course. But it is very wrong in my opinion to keep the focus on Folk Music.Dndn1011 16:06, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Johnny Cash not a Songwriter?

Not sure what the beef is here, but Johnny Cash started his career as a singer-songwriter. Apparently he had is break singing one of his own songs as opposed to a cover to a record producer. On a side note, it is getting silly listing every songwriter. We need a seperate page with a list of songwriters. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dndn1011 (talk • contribs) 00:35, 6 December 2006 (UTC).

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