Posted on 11/21/2008 10:56:14 AM PST by weegee
...Elvis Costello asked James Taylor to name his favorite new songwriters. Mr. Taylor seemed momentarily stunned by the question, as if he'd never considered it.
Finally, he cited his talented son Ben and conceded he didn't listen to much new music. Which means when Mr. Taylor sets out to record an album of other people's songs, he's off to the familiar recycling bin... written in the '50s, '60s and '70s. As for the past three decades of great songs...
...If talented singers like these don't have to pay attention to new songwriters, what happens to the great American songbook? ...Other singers may discover unexplored meaning in a lyrical thread or reveal melodic possibilities beyond the writer's capacity as a vocalist. Performed at a different tempo, transposed to another key, given a new arrangement or sung by a gifted singer, a song takes on a new life.
...Listen to Solomon Burke's reading of a couple of songs by Jesse Harris on his "Like a Fire"... and you'll hear that the marriage of a veteran singer and a relatively new songwriter works just fine.
...It doesn't take much vision to see that if these trusted artists were to introduce their fans to new songs, the fans might turn around and buy albums by the promising young singer-songwriters who wrote them. Wouldn't it be a good thing if the industry expanded its customer base by re-energizing an older demographic?
...Is it so impossible to imagine that these music lovers might buy something by new artists, too, if they were familiar with their work? A snippet of a song dropped under the third act of TV's "House" is one way... But I suspect that it would be much more effective to ask... singers with solid reputations and fan bases to handle the introductions....
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Prince?
I was going to say that overrated isn’t the best word to describe Ryan Adams. Uneven is. I will say that his last two, Easy Tiger and Cardinology, have been pretty solid throughout.
I can’t believe they don’t have Craig Finn of The Hold Steady on their list of great recent songwriters.
I also question the idea that older artists covering younger ones will bring older listeners to younger artists. I guess the true test of this would be what did Johnny Cash do for the younger artists he covered. Did baby boomers and older go out and grab some Soundgarden and Nine Inch Nails CDs?
I have my own list of everlooked songwriters and recording artists, and they're not Tom Waitses or members of grunge rock groups. I mean, Mick Jagger himself once said that anyone can write a song, it's not rocket science. Irving Berlin could turn out hundreds of them (most of them deservedly forgotten), and he could barely play the piano. If you're old enough, you'll remember what a perennial hit Sunny was, now what happened to that one? Yesterday shall pass too.
Steve does write some good songs. Ever hear Shawn Colvin's Cover Girl album? She does very nice covers of Earle's "Someday," Talking Heads' "This Must Be the Place," Waits' "Heart of Saturday Night," and others of her favorites.
As I read this and other threads regarding this sort of stuff, in the back of my mind the phrase “art is subjective” repeats.
I am no fan of Philip Dick, nor his book “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep”, but I loved BladeRunner. But my nephew thinks Philip is the sh!!.
Awesome. I’m hoping my wife buys me his latest for Christmas.
Marc Cohn is, IMHO, one of the most underrated song writers of the last 20 years. His last album is pretty darned good.
www.marccohn.net
A nine pound hammer or a woman like you"
Love this guy
A nine pound hammer or a woman like you"
Love this guy
Most of us songwriters are at least half crazy and sometimes that helps. Sometimes it gets in the way. If you ever get to Nashville, there are a number of great places to catch some of it “live in the dives”. I’m almost always part of the writers’ night show over at Bobby’s Idle Hour on Music Row. A bunch of my writer friends show up on my MySpace page http://www.myspace.com/emmettgrayson If you like Dave Olney’s stuff, you might enjoy my friend Jay Craik’s stuff, but there are a bunch over there who have some real neat kinda off-kilter non-mainstream stuff.
I also checked out Jay Craik's songs, which I do like. He sounds a little quirky, which is a good thing when it comes to music and songwriting.
By the way, Dot Kelly = yummy!
Nashville is definitely on my to-do list.
Hi Kevin - I appreciate your comments. I need to go back and figure out how to make things available for sale there. It’s my shortcoming not the website’s. I’ve mostly used the internet postings as a way to have things available for listening without people having to open an mp3 file on their own computer.
Bobby’s Idle Hour?
Hey, check this out:
Click on the thumbnail photo. This will give you a view of the street. Click on “full screen”, then left click as you drag your mouse around. It’s a 360 view. And if you click on the arrows on the line in the street, you will move up and down the street.
I love Broadway. I’m in two country bands in Seattle and Nashville is a treat. Music all day, bands play for tips. I do the rounds and then tip the ones I like.
Meanwhile, here’s Bobby’s Idle Hour. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=1028+16th+Ave+S,+Nashville,+TN+37212&sll=36.162045,-86.777798&sspn=0.006644,0.009613&g=414+BROADWAY,+Nashville,+TN&layer=c&ie=UTF8&ll=36.164765,-86.781178&spn=0.106296,0.153809&z=13&cbll=36.144705,-86.7929&panoid=MuigNs2pNtpMvby9ZuSKvA&cbp=1,95.67116277746982,,0,11.205967722483576
It’s really nowhere near Music row though... I’ll have to check it out next time I’m there.
Maybe being from Seattle you may not be exactly sure what is “Music Row” and may be confusing it with “Lower Broad”. Many music venues on Lower Broad, but Music Row is basically the streets which were once called 16th and 17th Avenues between Division Street and up to about Wedgewood . They are now called Music Square East and Music Square West respectively. Bobby’s Idle Hour is on 16th just off Tremont and is in the very heart of Music Row. There are also some venues over on Division Street of the sort you describe. That is perhap marginally part of Music Row, but it is the more “touristy” part. It’s been over 30 years since I first came to Nashville and I’ve been here completely and full-time for 22 years.
I suspected that was the case. My friend used to work at Word records and last month we drove by their old building. He called that area the “corporate music row”, or something like that.
I’m gonna check out that area by Bobby’s when we come back in January. BTW, I bought 15 acres in central Kentucky and expect to move there in a year or two. It’s a 2 hour drive to Nashville. We’ll be going there much more often.
At night, there’s little going on as far as music on Music Row. Bobby’s is about it as far as I know. It is a struggling holdover from days past when you’d stop into these beer dives and pass guitar around trading songs often with guys whose names you’d know. Still, Bobby’s remains a great place to meet other writers/artists and such. I’ve made friends from all over the world there who come in whenever they’re in town. Maybe you’ll get in there and visit, play a few of your own songs. It’s all original stuff, no “covers”. I’ve been meaning to get one of mine over to Word actually. Maybe you could have your friend go over to http://www.myspace.com/emmettgrayson The first song which comes up is called “That Rock Is Gonna Roll”. I think it would fit right into their catalogue. Let me know when you might visist Nashville again.
Despite being called the next Lennon/McCartney, Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford (Squeeze) never really got their due. They had a couple of minor hits (Tempted, Hourglass, etc.), but never really got the “sell out 50,000 seats a night” fame they should have had. Other good songwriters of “late” are Matthew Sweet (his minor hit “Girlfriend” from 1991 is the best three-chord rock song of the last 30 years), Prince (yes, he qualifies under your criteria), Andy Sturmer and Roger Manning (Jellyfish), Danny Wilde and Phil Solem (the Rembrandts), and Karl Wallinger (World Party).
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