- Singer-songwriter
"Singer-songwriter" is a term that refers to
performer s who write, compose and sing their own material includinglyrics and melodies. They often provide the soleaccompaniment to an entire composition orsong , typically using aguitar . The term is also sometimes used for a genre of music that is often performed in this manner. A number of other well-known musicians may write some of their own songs, but are usually referred to assinger s instead.North America and United Kingdom
The origins of the singer-songwriter in
North America can be traced back to folk singers who created original works in the folk music style. The best known early singer-songwriters includeWoody Guthrie ,Leadbelly andPete Seeger , along with members ofThe Weavers (Seeger performed solo and as part of the Weavers). These proto-singer-songwriters were less concerned than today's singer-songwriters with the unadulterated originality of their music and lyrics, and would lift parts from other songs and play covers without hesitation. The tradition of writing topical songs (songs regarding specific issues of the day, such as Lead Belly's "Jim Crow Blues" or Guthrie's "Deportees") was established by this group of musicians. These singers would lead rallies for labor unions, and so wrote many songs concerning the life of the working classes. This focus on social issues has greatly influenced the singer-songwriter genre.The first popular recognition of the singer-songwriter in English-speaking North America and Great Britain occurred in the 1960s and early 1970s when a series of folk and country-influenced musicians rose to prominence and popularity. These singer-songwriters included
Bob Dylan ,Paul Simon ,Neil Young ,John Denver ,Jackson Browne ,Dave Mason ,Jim Croce ,Joni Mitchell ,David Crosby ,Leonard Cohen ,Donovan ,Randy Newman ,Gordon Lightfoot ,Nick Drake ,Carly Simon ,Cat Stevens ,Bruce Cockburn ,Harry Chapin ,James Taylor ,Dan Fogelberg andDolly Parton . People who had been primarily songwriters, notablyCarole King , also began releasing work as performers. In contrast to the storytelling approach of most prior country and folk music, these performers typically wrote songs from a highly personal (often first-person), introspective point of view. The adjectives "confessional" and "sensitive" were often used (sometimes derisively) to describe this early singer-songwriter style.While the members of rock bands of the era were not technically singer-songwriters, many former band members (including
Paul McCartney ,John Lennon ,George Harrison ,Peter Frampton and laterDon Henley andGlenn Frey ) found success as singer-songwriters in their later careers.By the late 1970s and early 1980s the original wave of singer-songwriters had largely been absorbed into a more general pop or
soft rock format, but some new artists in the singer-songwriter tradition (includingBilly Joel ,Bruce Springsteen ,Mark Heard ,Lucinda Williams ,Patti Smith ,Kate Bush ,Stevie Nicks ,Cheryl Wheeler andWarren Zevon ) continued to emerge, and in other cases rock and evenpunk rock artists such asPeter Case andPaul Westerberg transitioned to careers as solo singer-songwriters.In the late 1980s, the term was applied to a group of (predominantly female) artists, beginning with
Suzanne Vega with her first album selling unexpectedly well, followed by the likes ofTracy Chapman ,Nanci Griffith andK.D. Lang . Likewise, the success ofTori Amos in the United Kingdom led to her success in her home market. By the mid-1990s, the term was revived with the success of Canada'sAlanis Morissette and her breakthrough album "Jagged Little Pill ". It had grown to encompass fellow-CanadianSarah McLachlan , who started theLilith Fair , along with other artists associated with that event, such as American artistsSheryl Crow ,Victoria Williams ,Patty Griffin , Jewel,Lisa Loeb ,Natalie Merchant andJoan Osborne .Also in the 1990s artists such as
Dave Matthews andElliott Smith borrowed from the singer-songwriter tradition to create new acoustic-based rock styles. In the 2000s, a quieter style emerged, with largely impressionistic lyrics, from artists such asConor Oberst ,David Bazan ,South San Gabriel ,Iron & Wine ,Ray LaMontagne ,Steve Millar ,Jolie Holland andRichard Buckner .Recording on the professional-grade systems became affordable for individuals in the late 1990s. This created opportunities for people to independently record and sell their music. Such artists are known as "indies" because they release their records on independent, often self-owned record labels, or no label at all. Additionally the Internet has provided a means for indies to get their music heard by a wider audience.
Latin traditions
Beginning in the 1960s, many Latin American countries developed singer-songwriter traditions that adopted elements from various popular styles. The first such tradition was the mid-60s invention of
nueva canción , which took hold in Andean countries likeChile ,Peru ,Argentina andBolivia .At around the same time, the
Brazil ian popular stylebossa nova was evolving into a politically charged singer-songwriter tradition calledTropicalismo . Two performers,Gilberto Gil andCaetano Veloso became two of the most famous people in all of Brazil through their work in Tropicalismo.In the same period, there developed in
Italy a very prolific singer-songwriter (in Italian "cantautore ") tradition, initially connected with the French school of the "chansonniers", and lately developed very heterogeneously. Although the term "cantautore" normally implies consistent sociopolitical content in lyrics, noteworthy performers in a more inclusive singer-songwriter categorization are:Domenico Modugno ,Luigi Tenco ,Gino Paoli ,Sergio Endrigo ,Fabrizio De André ,Francesco De Gregori ,Antonello Venditti ,Roberto Vecchioni ,Ivano Fossati ,Lucio Dalla ,Francesco Guccini andFranco Battiato . Completely resisting classification is the NeapolitanPino Daniele , who often fuses genres as diverse as jazz, rock, blues and tarantella to produce a sound uniquely his own, with lyrics variously in Italian, Neapolitan, or English. SimilarlyPaolo Conte is often tagged as a cantatuore, but is more into the jazz tradition.In neighbouring Malta, the main singer-songwriters are
Walter Micallef , Manwel Mifsud and Vince Fabri. They all perform in Maltese.Spain andPortugal have also had singer-songwriter traditions, which are sometimes said to have drawn on Latin elements. Spain is known for the nova cançó tradition — exemplified by the CatalanJoan Manuel Serrat ; the Portuguese folk/protest singer and songwriterJosé Afonso helped lead a revival of Portuguese folk culture, including a modernized, more socially-aware form offado callednova canção . Following Portugal'sCarnation Revolution of 1974, nova canção became more politicized and was known ascanto livre . Another important Spain singer-songwriter isJoaquin Sabina .In the latter part of the 1960s and into the 70s, socially and politically aware singer-songwriters like
Silvio Rodríguez andPablo Milanés emerged inCuba , birthing a genre known asnueva trova . Trova as a genre has had broad influence across Latin America. In Mexico, for example, canción yucateca on theYucatan Peninsula and trova serrana in theSierra Norte de Oaxaca are both regional adaptations of trova. Today, GuatemalanRicardo Arjona qualifies as Latin America's most commercially successful singer-songwriter. Although sociopolitical engagement is uneven in his oeuvre, some see Arjona's more engaged works as placing him in the tradition of the Italian "cantautori ".In the mid-1970s, a singer-songwriter tradition called
canto popular emerged inUruguay .oviet Union and Russia
*main|Bard (Soviet Union)
Since the 1960s, those singers who wrote songs outside the Soviet establishment have been known as "bards". Many bards performed their songs in small groups of people using a
Russian guitar , rarely if ever would they be accompanied by other musicians or singers. Those who would become popular would be able to hold modest concerts. Bards were rarely permitted to record their music, given the political nature of many songs. As a result, bard tunes usually made their way around via the copying of amateur recordings (known asmagnitizdat ) made at concerts, particularly those songs that were of political nature.Bard poetry differs from other poetry mainly in the fact that it is sung along with a simple guitar melody as opposed to being spoken. Another difference is that this form of poetry focuses less on style and more on meaning. This means that fewer stylistic devices are used, and the poetry often takes the form of narrative. What separates bard poetry from other songs is the fact that the music is far less important than the lyrics;
chord progression s are often very simple and tend to repeat from one bard song to another. A far more obvious difference was the commerce-free nature of the genre: songs were written to be sung and not to be sold.Hong Kong
Singer-songwriters were not common in
Hong Kong until the early 21st century. This is due to the unique situation of the pop music scene in Hong Kong. Record labels are controlled by large enterprises leading to an abundance of K-songs (Karaoke type songs) in Hong Kong. Currently some of the distinctive and well-known singer-songwriters in Hong Kong are:Nicholas Tse (谢霆锋),Chet Lam (林一峰),Pong Nan (藍奕邦), Khalil Fong (方大同), Justin (側田) andIvana Wong (王菀之).Bulgaria
Singer-songwriters are popular in Bulgaria under the name "bards", or "poets with guitars". Their tradition is a mixture of traditional folk motifs, city folklore from the early 20th century and modern influences. In the 60's, 70's and 80's of the 20th century the Communist regime in the country started to tolerate the Bulgarian "bards", promoting the so called "political songs", performed usually by one-man bands. A national festival tradition was established, under the title "Alen Mak" (Red Poppy), a symbol with strong Communist meaning in Bulgaria. After the collapse of Communism in 1989 the singer-songwriters' tradition was re-established. Currently the Bulgarian "bards" enjoy several festivals (local and international) per year, namely the PoKi Festival (Poets with Guitars, Poetic Strings) in the town of Harmanli, the Bardfest in Lovech, the Sofia Evenings of Singer-Songwriters and others. Major figures in the Bulgarian tradition are Mihail Belchev, Assen Maslarski, Grisha Trifonov, Plamen Stavrev, Vladimir Levkov, Margerita Drumeva.
World folk
Despite the communist isolation, the tradition of singer-songwriter in
Romania flourished beginning with the end of the 1960s and it was put in the context of thefolk music, with its three main styles in Romania : ethno folk, American-style folk and lyrical (cult) folk. The framework for many of these initiatives came under the form ofCenaclul Flacara , a series of mass cultural events with an inevitable ideological touch, still, with the merritt of supporting great opening initiatives: the appropriation of Western artists likeBob Dylan ,Joan Baez and others from the Woodstock generation, the public performance of gospel-like music, the opening to big international issues (pop culture, accountability of the leadership, tension surging during the Cold War-with surprisingly neutral positions etc). Overall, the Romanian folk, in general, could be marked as an underground cultural movement, somewhere between non-aligned and protest music.ee also
*
List of singer-songwriters
*
*Cantautori
*Swedish ballad tradition
*Periodicals that include coverage of singer-songwriters
**Dirty Linen , focus on folk and world music.
** No Depression, focus on alternative country styles.
** Paste, eclectic music coverage.
**Pitchfork Media , focus on independent artists.
**Sing Out! , focus on folk styles.Further reading
*Alarik, Scott, "
Deep Community ", (2003), Black Wolf Press. [http://www.here-now.org/shows/2003/05/20030512_17.asp]
*Hoffman, Frank [http://www.shsu.edu/~lis_fwh/book/hybrid_children_of_rock/Singer-Songwriters2.htm "The Singer-Songwriter Tradition"] , from [http://www.shsu.edu/~lis_fwh/book/index.htm "Survey of American Popular Music"] ("modified for the web by Robert Birkline")
*Knopfler, David, [http://www.knopfler.com/articles/songwriters.html "The Singer-Songwriter: Defining the Genre - Defining the Style"]*DiMartino, Dave "Singer-Songwriters: Pop Music's Performer-Composers from A to Zevon" (1994), Billboard Books("web search required").
*Rodgers, Jeffrey P., "The Complete Singer-Songwriter: A Troubadour's Guide to Writing, Performing, Recording & Business", (2003) Backbeat Books("web search required").
*"Singer-Songwriters of the Rock Era", (1996), Hal Leonard (sheet music)("web search required").
*allmusicguide | id = 77:7201 | label = Contemporary singer/songwriterReferences
External links
* [http://www.wikimusician.org/Singer-Songwriter_Groove Singer-Songwriter Groove Ideas for Bass] .
* [http://www.americansongwriter.com/ American Songwriter]
* [http://www.performingsongwriter.com/ Performing Songwriter]
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