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As the '70s came to a close, the first wave of singer/songwriters had dispersed into soft rock (James Taylor), more experimental avenues (Joni Mitchell), or straight-ahead mainstream pop (Carole King, Paul Simon) and rock (Jackson Browne).
This is a list of singer-songwriters who write, compose, and perform their own musical material. The list is divided into two sections to differentiate between artists categorized as singer-songwriters and others who do not fall under the definition associated with the genre: Traditional singer-songwriters. Others who both write songs and sing.
- Kirsty MacColl
- Christine McVie
- Abbey Lincoln
- Valerie Simpson
- Judee Sill
- Taylor Swift
- Grace Slick
- Nina Simone
- Madonna
- Billie Holiday
Like many progressive songwriters, Kirsty MacColl started out doing retro-styled pop. Her first success, “They Don’t Know” (a UK hit for Tracey Ullman), was one of the better girl-group homages of its time; and her first album, Desperate Character, ranks as one of the great lost Rockpile-style albums. MacColl got far more adventurous afterward, in ...
Stevie Nicks is often thought of as the greatest female songwriter in Fleetwood Mac, thanks to the success of “Dreams” and “Rhiannon,” but one of her bandmates has an even deeper catalogue. On the Bare Treesalbum alone Christine McVie gets in one of Fleetwood Mac’s great lost blues-rockers, “Homeward Bound,” along with “Spare Me A Little Of Your Lo...
A fascinating woman all around, Abbey Lincoln had early success as a free-thinking jazz singer. Her 1956 debut, Abbey Lincoln’s Affair, was just the beginning of a trajectory that included an acting career and becoming a TV fixture during the early 70s. Working with her then-husband Max Roach in the 60s, she wrote a handful of civil-rights-inspired...
Their preference for ballads may explain why Ashford & Simpson aren’t cited more often as one of the great songwriting teams, but “Let’s Go Get Stoned” and “I Don’t Need No Doctor” alone (both written for Ray Charles and covered by everybody) should have enshrined them for good. They didn’t adopt their trademark elegant style until they got to Moto...
Call her the female equivalent of Nick Drake: a late 60s/early 70s artist who got discovered long after the fact. In Judee Sill’s case, it wasn’t a TV commercial that did it; it was the viral video (originally a BBC broadcast) of her at the piano singing “The Kiss,” a piece of otherworldly beauty. All three of her albums have songs like that, among...
It’s easy to forget Taylor Swift’s songwriting pedigree since it seems like she’s always been the-larger-than-life pop star she’s known as today, but Swift is steeped in the Nashville songwriter tradition. At the age of 16, she released her self-titled debut with songwriting credits on every track and continued to hone her skills over the next deca...
During her tenure with Jefferson Airplane, Grace Slick was a truly psychedelic songwriter. While her bandmates were documenting the psychedelic experience, her songs were mind-expanding in their own right, and she snuck the most lysergic of them, “White Rabbit,” onto AM radio for all the impressionable kids to hear. At her best (“Lather,” “Eskimo B...
If Nina Simone had been a more prolific writer, she might be remembered as one of the all-time best female songwriters of all time. As it was, she wrote only when there was something she needed to say, and she said it forcefully and artfully. “Mississippi Goddam” and “To Be Young, Gifted And Black” remain remarkably strong wake-up calls, and her re...
Madonna’s ever-changing persona hinges as much as anything on the songs she’s recorded. You might say she writes great character songs and then becomes the characters. After borrowing a pair of manifestos from other writers (“Material Girl” and “Like A Virgin”), she became the co-writer of much of her material and turned out melodic gems such as “L...
It’s true that Lady Day didn’t write (or at least didn’t publish) many songs – only about a dozen bear her credit – but one of them was the profound “God Bless The Child,” whose chorus was apparently borrowed from her mother; her signature song “Lady Sings The Blues” was also hers. Even on outside material, she had a sensitive ear, choosing two of ...
- Brett Milano
Jan 11, 2022 · Jesse Frasure is at No. 2 on MusicRow ’s Top 100 Songwriters of 2021 list. His arsenal of hits from 2021 include “Almost Maybes” (Jordan Davis), “Whiskey And Rain” (Michael Ray), “What’s Your Country Song” (Thomas Rhett), “Minimum Wage” (Blake Shelton), “One Mississippi” (Kane Brown), and more.
Jan 5, 2023 · Every week, MusicRow Magazine releases its Top Songwriter Chart. Using algorithms based on song activity according to airplay, digital download track sales and streams, the chart ranks the week’s top 60 songwriters.
Jan 16, 2019 · Celebrating the 100 greatest songs from singer-songwriters from the last seven decades, including the best from Bob Dylan and Elton John.
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The week's most popular artists across all genres, ranked by album and track sales as compiled by Luminate, radio airplay audience impressions as compiled by Luminate and streaming activity data...
