Here’s a very early post from our opening months as a blog concerning a topic that still mystifies me a bit. Let’s see if we can’t reopen this pozzling case 4 1/2 years later.
This post initially appeared 2/23/07.
Too often discussions of the ’70s singer-songwriter era are clouded or impeded by your Moderator’s bias against the music and many of its key artists. This weekend, I’d like to set aside my biases, and I hope those of you who share in these biases do likewise.
What qualities did middling ’60s artists, such as James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, David Bowie, Cat Stevens, Jackson Browne, and Warren Zevon (not to mention previously faceless songwriters like Carole King and Neil Diamond), possess that allowed them to blossom as solo artists in the ’70s? What talents were the times of the swinging ’60s keeping at bay? Beside Paul Simon and the CSNY connection, few successful artists from folk-rock’s budding days in the mid-60s crossed over to ’70s singer-songwriter stardom.
Were there also artists who had achieved some degree of success in the ’60s who might have been better served by struggling a few more years and appearing as solo artists in 1969? I’m not sure if I’ve thought of any obvious answers to that question, but let me throw out some people I know some of you like in their underrecognized solo careers: Gene Clark and Dennis Wilson. Similarly, would Donovan have had a deeper, more credible career had he come to life in the age of the singer-songwriter?
Finally, did Dylan ever “crossover” to the singer-songwriter age with Blood on the Tracks and Desire, or was he always Dylan? He never stripped down and got intimate again during the ’70s, as he might have done to tremendous reception, did he?
I look forward to your input, especially because this is an area beyond my wheelhouse.
Don’t let me down, Townspeople. There’s gotta be something there regarding the singer-songwriters who came of age after slow starts in the ’60s.
Also, the more I think about it, Dylan moved further from being a singer-songwriter during this stretch. He kept trying to surround himself with something like a band. To this day, is he running from what could have been his natural position as Singer-Songwriter Extraordinaire?
Still no action… Are the questions I raise regarding singer-songwriters that lame?
These are good questions. My hunch is that a belief in the validity of mass political movements in the 60s was reflected in the ambitious artistic vision expressed by rock groups such as the Beatles.
In the 70s this belief became increasingly questioned and so did the elevation of bands over individual artists. Singer songwriters reflected the growing sentiment that “the personal is the political.” Here there was still room for shared political feeling, but one that placed importance on personal difference. Hence the increasingly idiosyncratic lyrical outlook of 70s artists, which was accepted and trusted more by listeners than an appeal to a larger group identity (ie “We all live in a yellow submarine”).
Does Lou Reed fit into this category? His first solo album didn’t come out till ’72, but he definitely achieved more commercial success in the 70s than he did in the 60s.
Also, following up on dr. john’s points, it’s not called the Me Decade for nothing.
I don’t know if further struggles would have helped Reed as a fresh-faced solo artist circa 1972. I think the legacy he built up with the VU has been a large part of the fuel for his career’s work. His work in that band and through that scene, in a sense, is his great first heartbreak/betrayal that the ’70s singer-songwriters would lean on for their inspiration.
I find it interesting to look at someone who wasn’t especially successful as a 60s folkie, and then turned into a sensitive ssw and wasn’t especially successful at that either. The guy I have in mind is Eric Andersen, who tried and tried and tried but never had enough originality or songwriting chops to be more than an also-ran. A lot of people think his 1972 album BLUE RIVER is his best, but it’s just half-baked James Taylor, as his 60s work is just half-baked Dylan. My point in bringing Andersen into this is that the people who succeeded in the 70s were those who showed legitimate talent as songwriters in the 60s. There’s a reason Joni Mitchell and Jackson Browne and Carole King and Warren Zevon became famous and Andersen, Steve Noonan, Pamela Polland, and so on did not. While I’m at it, a few interesting cases—I’d love to hear opinions on these:
Jimmie Spheeris. His ISLE OF VIEW (bad pun–say it fast) album is considered by some to be the pinnacle of the genre. I find it way too soft and blah to be great music despite a few good moments.
Elliott Murphy. AQUASHOW, as I have mentioned many times, is my all time favorite ssw album. My question for all of you isn’t whether you like Myurphy, but why there weren’t more people like him who morphed 60s folk-rock into legitimate youthful 70s rock and roll?
Dirk Hamilton. He started out closer to a folkie but when he was given a production budget he showed himself to be far closer to Van Morrison (in Van’s most rocking eras) than any folkie. How many other ssw types showed such a soulful edge? (I highly recommend MEET ME AT THE CRUX for those who have never heard it.)
Steve Forbert. A folkie ssw to come from the middle of the CBGB punk generation? Does that make him more interesting, or not?
John Cale’s VINTAGE VIOLENCE sounds a lot more like a ssw album than anything Reed has ever done. The distinction is a bit confusing, though. If someone is all-electric and has a rock persona like Bowie or Reed or Tom Petty or Graham Parker or even Dwight Twilley, does that disqualify them from the label? Is someone who bills themselves as so-and-so and the so-and-so band automatically disqualified?
One more thing…Donovan has lost his songwriting mojo by the 70s, so the question about him is a tough one. If what you’re asking is if the work he did in the 60s happened a decade later, would his reputation be different, I suspect he would have actually been less remembered and respected than he is.
I suspect that their sensitive singer songwriters tendencies were always there. Some of them had to stop trying to shoehorn their work into genres that didn’t suit them, while others had to wait for the record buying public to absorb all of the new found artistic freedoms that the 60’s had to offer and begin focusing more on the songs and less on the presentation of them.
I wouldn’t think necessarily so, but when we talk “ssw” we usually have some idea in mind of the musical boundaries.
Yes, I was saying if his best stuff had come out in 1972 would he have been the Cat Stevens of that era and not Cat, who scuffled a bit through the late-’60s? I think he would have been much more respected if he’d peaked in the early ’70s. I put his hits up there with the surprisingly (to me) highly respected T Rex, for instance. I think he would have slot right between Stevens and Bolan.
I do like Steve Forbert, but the Forbert of the 80s and early 90s — Streets of This Town and The American in Me are outstanding. He is way more of a hardass than “Romeo’s Tune” would lead you to think. I had to get over that song to fully embrace the dude.
Personally, I don’t think of Parker, Petty, or Twilley as ssws. I mean they were the leaders of good bands in their heydays — perhaps in Parker’s and Twilley’s case, they’re more in the ssw mode these days. BTW — I follow Twilley on Twitter and he’s threatening to leave Tulsa and tour soon.
I suspect the reason that there was so little discussion of this initially is that no one really knows what this category or genre means, or at least no two people can agree on the same definition.
I’ve never heard the later Forbert albums…maybe I should investigate them. By the way, I like “Romeo’s Tune.” I have no problem with it at all; but I do know it’s not necessarily his natural musical sensibility.
I know this is wrong but whether it is due to a vague similarity of last name or whether they had songs on the radio at the same time I associate Steve Forbert and Dan Fogelberg. And I am sorry to kick Dan Fogelberg since he’s no longer with us but insofar as I think of anything in particular when I hear the phrase “70s singer-songwriter” I think of him, and, no, I don’t mean that in a good way.
I think I have a problem with ssw guys like Fogelberg and Harry Chapin because I tend not to like songs with lyrics that leave absolutely nothing to the imagination. Songs like Same Olde Lang Syne and Cat’s in the Cradle just hit you over the head too hard.
Forbert is not at obvious in most of his songwriting.
I have little use for the weenier SSWs like James Taylor, Dan Fogelberg, or Gordon Lightfoot. Paul Simon and Randy Newman are saved by the approach to the music on their solo albums. Joni Mitchell was interesting from Court and Spark through Hejira, but she was really precious and boring at first. Jimmy Buffett barely escapes the axe by virtue of his humor. The only Jackson Browne I like is the time he loosened up a bit for Running on Empty. Carole King had her pop-craft skills behind her, though she made a lot of clunkers like “Hard Rock Cafe”.
I don’t really consider Dylan, Donovan, Van Morrison, or Bowie to be true SSWs, though they all made songs that could be force-fitted into the SSW category. Petty, Graham Parker, Warren Zevon, and other late ’70s+ artists all came too late.
Lightfoot has made some very weenie music over time, but “Sundown” is probably the most badass singer songwriter song ever. After listening closely to that one, tell me you’d rather mess with his woman than, say, Chuck Norris’…
….”Cat’s in the Cradle”….shudders Yes, that doesn’t exactly leave the listener to connect the dots does it? Again, not to speak ill of the dead, but he sucks big time. But not because he died.
Oh man, who are you kidding? You hate dead people!
But he still sing it like his vocal cords have been heavily starched. He’s not an expressive singer at all.
Yes, but not because they are dead.
By all accounts, Harry was a nice guy. He did tons of charity performances and was a genial performer. However, if “Cat’s in the Cradle” makes you shudder, what about his “Dogtown”?
“Living with this silent dog
all the moments of my life,
He has been my only husband;
am I a widow, or his wife?”
“Six months past, when his ship was due,
I’m a widow to be.
For liking this half living with the lonely and the fog,
You need the bastard of the mating of a woman and a dog.”
Cripes, Harry, what were you thinking?
Donovan became something of a psychedelic vanguard for a couple of years starting with “Sunshine Superman” in 1966 and that’s why people remember him. He definitely fell off the radar in the 1970s, though I have to admit that his 1973 “Cosmic Wheels” song is something of a guilty pleasure of mine.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-htKgvLdtTg
The only Chapin songs I know offhand are the mean dad song and the taxi driver song. I am fully prepared to hear that he has a huge body of work of which those two horrible songs are poor representations, not fully prepared to believe it or to listen to anything by him.
Gitche gumee!
Someday, tony, if you are really lucky, you’ll get to hear my Lightfoot impression. It is almost as good as my Michael McDonald.
I like Harry’s nieces — The Chapin Sisters — better than him or his brother, Tom.
Story
http://thechapinsisters.com/press/ny_times.html
Song.
http://thechapinsisters.com/songs/palm.html
I never heard “Dogtown” before but those lyrics would trump current champion Chestnut Mare for top honors in an Unintentionally Creepy Lyrics Battle Royale
The summer before I started college I worked an assembly job to help pay for school (1977). It was probably the worst job of my life. Horrible but I’ll spare you most of my tale of woe. Anyway, my mind must have been “right” for torture as I swear I had “Cat’s in the Cradle” stuck in my head for 2-3 weeks while I packaged refrigeration hoses! Surely THIS was Hell on earth. It was like teetering into insanity day after day….Brrrrrrr……
There was nothing unintentional about Harry’s lyrics in “Dogtown”. Supposedly he sang more explicitly about the dog/woman thing in live concerts.
Another moment of incipient singer-songwriter creepiness – Dan Fogelberg’s own painting on the cover of his Captured Angel album. Oddly shaped breasts and Little Orphan Annie eyes.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51H7dVc0hGL.jpg
I suspect the difference between the 1970s and 1960s has more to do with the marketing focus of the record companies and the sway of public tastes then with the quality of the signer-songwriters available during the respective eras. Taylor and Mitchell, et al, just happened to have the peak of their talents aligned with the public’s peak interest in that sort of music. There were plenty of great “singer songwriter” types in the 1960s (e.g. Jackson Frank), just as there are now, but the record companies weren’t trying as hard to find and promote them then.
Simple answer:
It’s all economics. For the first time, in the 70’s adults started buying albums in large quantities. In the 50’s & 60’s, the dominant record buying age demographic was 13-17.