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.
