most underated song writer

Richard Monroe said:
Yo mike- if you haven't heard "East Asheville Hardware" Just do it. 18 live cuts of the David Wilcox stuff that was too weird to make it onto any other album.-Richie
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I had the pleasure of seeing David Wilcox live this summer in an acoustic songwriters' circle which also featured Ian Thomas, Rick Emmett, and Murray McLaughlin. I originally feared that it would be a session of dredging up all the oldies that everyone perhaps thought they wanted to hear. I really like Riverboat Fantasy, the BearCat, etc. but I wasn't expecting much from David Wilcox, really.

I was blown away. He was an affable and very un-pretentious performer, his voice was dead on, and he totally impressed me as a guitarist. His songs he played were VERY well crafted, and only one of them was a "classic" from his earlier days. It was inspiring. He didn't seem to be in the least bit loaded, clumsy, confused, sloppy, or anything else you might expect from a person with his reputation.

Chris

Moe Berg from the Pursuit of Happiness still rules, though....
 
Obviously people aren't concerned with the title of the thread anymore.

Brian Wilson?

Bob Dylan?

Tom Waits?

Robbie Roberston?

UNDERRATED?????

I'm surprised no one mentioned Paul Simon or John and Paul.

These guys are celebrated by everyone who's ever written a song.


I can think of plenty obscure songwriters, but I can't really think of any underrated ones. It seems to me that songwriting talent usually gets recognized once it's discovered.

I could name plenty of overrated ones, IMO.
 
Warren Zevon (never got the credit he deserved)
Todd Snider (more "under-known" than underrated, but he's great)
Kris Kristofferson (at least in his early years)
 
I don't know who the most underrated songwriters could be ! But Bruce Cockburn, Todd Rundgren {especially his Nazz stuff} and Stuart Copeland are underrated. Some of Copeland's songs in the Police are as good as Sting's in my opinion. He actually co wrote some of them with Sting ('Peanuts', 'It's alright for you', 'Landlord', 'Rehumanize yourself') but his own compositions { 'On any other day', 'Contact', 'Does everyone stare', 'Bombs away', 'The other way of stopping', 'Darkness'} were fantastic and provided a great foil and variation to Sting's. Most of his input are among my favourite Police songs.
Todd Rundgren went on to great fame in the 70s but his output in the 60s on the Nazz's 3 LPs are incredible. He was one of the best writers of the 60s in my opinion, truly underrated, like Gene Clarke of the Byrds.
As for Bruce Cockburn, there was a time when he was known as 'the last rock obscurity'. And with good reason. In my whole life I've only ever met one person {and known of two} that has heard anything by him, let alone heard of him. He's been writing great stuff since 1969 and has a truly diverse output, doing folk, stinging rock, reggae, jazzy stuff, spoken word etc and utilizing a vast array of instruments over the years. His songs are fantastic.
 
grimtraveller said:
IAs for Bruce Cockburn, there was a time when he was known as 'the last rock obscurity'. And with good reason. In my whole life I've only ever met one person {and known of two} that has heard anything by him, let alone heard of him. He's been writing great stuff since 1969 and has a truly diverse output, doing folk, stinging rock, reggae, jazzy stuff, spoken word etc and utilizing a vast array of instruments over the years. His songs are fantastic.
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Bruce Cockburn is so obscure that the two songs of his I KNOW I bought from iTunes several years ago now appear neither on my latest iPod or in newish PC's iTunes library.... somewhere along the way, the system "vanished" him.... :confused:

Bizarre, but you can add me to the list of people that you've known about who've known about Bruce Cockburn and actuallly heard of him, and heard him and paid money for his songs. :D

Speaking of old obscure folkies, I raise your Bruce Cockburn and give you Nigel Mazlyn Jones... :D
 
Armistice said:
Speaking of old obscure folkies, I raise your Bruce Cockburn and give you Nigel Mazlyn Jones... :D
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Hmmm......deal me in Dave Bixby and the most depressing sounding album ever, "Ode to Quetzalcoatl". And it's supposed to reflect relief and joy ! Obscure folkie wrist slitter !

I have 11 of Cockburn's albums spanning '73~'84. I remember when I discovered his stuff, it was a real adventure.

And one other songwriter that is totally underrated and by necessity ever will be is Neil Innes, who, in the 60s was in a weird band called the Bonzo dog doo dah band. He wrote a host of songs for a Beatle spoof called "All you need is cash". The film is sort of semi funny in a Spinal tap kind of way, but it's the songs, the songs. They are meant to be close to particular Beatle songs and they are excellent parodies with lyrics that are absolutely hilarious. But both musically and lyrically, the Rutles songs that he wrote stand on their own. I can't hear the songs at this moment in time without laughing my rock'n'rolls off and grooving at the same time.
 
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