Obviously I must add my vote to the Richard Thompson campaign. I'm also not
aware of seeing too many mentions of Van Morrison, who is certainly up there,
although I think he's gone off the boil. Joan Armatrading also deserves a
mention, and of modern exponents Shawn Colvin and Aimee Mann are right up
there.
At the risk of drawing fire, I don't rate Carol King as a solo songwriter.
Her place in pop history is not in doubt, as one half of one of the greatest
songwriting duos ever; but solo, her songs rarely rise to true greatness. I
have quite a few of her 70s albums, and while they're all listenable (and
Music is very good), something's missing.
One personal observation I have is about "genius". There's something
intangible about this quality to me. While I consider Joni and Dylan to be
the greatest songwriters of the rock era, I would more readily use the "g"
word about Laura Nyro, Kate Bush and Richard Thompson. Hejira is to me the
greatest album ever made, so why don't I describe Joni as a genius? She'll
have to content herself with being the greatest, a consummate artist, etc etc
:-)
Genius seems to capture something a bit extra and unique, a manifestation of
the otherwise unimaginable, something that seems to come from another place.
I can't imagine where Christmas & The Beads of Sweat, Hounds of Love or The
Woods of Darney come from.
FWIW, if faced with the words "music" and "genius", the names that come to my
mind, apart from those I've already mentioned, are Stevie Wonder, Steve
Winwood, Jane Siberry, Marvin Gaye, Neil Finn, Aretha Franklin, Jimi Hendrix.
Even someone like Mary Margaret O'Hara seems to have been touched with it.
Azeem In London
NP: Pooka - Spinning - having just seen them in concert, I found another
copy of this fab and long deleted album in a second hand shop, and bought it,
as I always do - this is my fourth copy!! The second and third went to good
homes, one of them on this list (hi Julian!). This album is also touched
with genius...
