Tell it to the Prelate
Hey
I was wondering who you people have been inspired by to write songs or just find as great writers-musicians.
I must admit that my favourite is Bob Dylan
Well, you did ask........
The thing with a question like this is that it'll always throw up some awkward awk that'll go on to mention lots of different writers across all kinds of esoteric genres.......
I love 60s and 70s pop and there were some writers that shone for me, even though they were generally regarded as a bit of a joke. Three partnerships that that applies to were Alan, Wayne and Merrill Osmond, Noddy Holder and Jim Lea of Slade and Eric Faulkner and Stuart Wood of the Bay City Rollers. These three outfits were so underrated yet they had in common superb pop sensibility and melodicism, married to hard rocking aspirations and they all achieved a great balance between imaginative writing and pop slop.
From the 80s the partnership between Mike Peters and Eddie McDonald of the Alarm {with some contributions from Dave Sharp} produced a great debut album and some wonderful songs.
I always thought Ray Davies of the Kinks was a writer equal to Lennon, McCartney, Jagger and Richards in the 60s, as was Pete Townshend. Underrated silent revolutionaries of rock's development. Neither underrated nor silent was Bob Dylan. He's the easiest songwriter to write off as a load of shit but historically, facts must be faced. Not so much musically, but lyrically, his influence and reach was simply
huge. He really did free up lyricists and helped wordplay and stuff that was obscure gain a new standing that rock has never recovered from !
I never thought progressive rock threw up particularly outstanding writers, though Ian Anderson was one in fits and starts. Two of my other faves were from the same band, Kerry Livgren and Steve Walsh of Kansas. That band certainly benefitted from having those two. Their styles and approach were so different yet complimentary - you had Livgren searching for God and/or the meaning of life through complex compositions and Walsh searching for love and lust via a more radio friendly, yet subtly clever writing style. Priceless.
The whole Monkees writing set up is just fantastic to me, particularly some of the songs that came from the Monkees themselves. And yes, they not only could write, they came up with some classics that would've been lauded with platitudes had the Beatles, Byrds or Stones come with them.
Gil Scott Heron is definitely one of the best writers I've come across. He took protest and sarcasm to new heights and was just so damn cool and funky. Not for nothing was he absorbed by the hip hop elite before there ever was such a thing. His collaborations with Brian Jackson in the 70s were so powerful, musically, lyrically and vocally.
Few people have heard of Leo O'Kelly and Sonny Condell. They released 3 Lps as Tir Na Nog, a 'progressive' Irish folk duo. To me they did not sound Celtic at all, but each was a superb writer and their three albums are treasure troves of grand songs. Impressive is how much they put into each others songs.
Milton Nascimento was a Brazilian writer of immense flair who managed to put together this absolutely unique album in 1976 (called "Milton") that somehow fused jazz, pop, Latin, jamming, improvisation and Beatleism. Very impressive, accessible and beautiful, the writing in particular is really skilful and impossible not to be influenced by, if only in concept.
Surprizingly, or perhaps not so, though I love jazz of many flavours, I don't rate the actual writers highly. Because jazz just ain't that kind of music. The improvising principle kind of renders composition pretty much secondary. For what it's worth though, John McLaughlin, Trevor Watts, John Mayer (the Indian one that collaborated with Joe Harriott on those great Indo-jazz experiments in the 60s), John Stevens, Chick Corea and Stanley Clarke have at various times written some killer stuff. Interesting that they were all fusioneers in one way or another at some point.
But when all is said and done, songwriting is very much secondary to the matter of actually arranging the song into something that can be played live or recorded. Almost anyone
could 'write' a song (a ten second one !) but it's another matter getting that song to become something beautiful and memorable. That's another process altogether.
I find demos and alternate takes that have been showing up as bonus tracks on CDs over the last few years interesting because to me, they show 'the song' in it's embryonic form is rarely satisfying, though the ingredients are there. It's kind of like the difference between the one who thinks up a recipe and the one that actually cooks the meal.
The defence rests.......
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