Top 15 Rock Songwriters
Submitted by grandpa_chum on Mon, 02/07/2005 - 02:11
Tags:
- Van Morrison
- Bob Dylan
- Roger Waters
- Tom Waits
- Warren Zevon
- Elliot Smith
- Robert Plant/Jimmy Page
- James Taylor
- Robbie Robertson
- John Fogerty
- Jackson Browne
- Don Henley
- David Bowie
- Tom Petty
- Ronnie VanZant
Cloned From:
In regards to Robbie Robertson. I've read Levon's book. He says although Robbie wrote the outline of most of the songs, he felt they were collaborations due to what everyone added to the final product. You could certainly state a case that once the Band broke up, he failed to write one decent song on his own (though I do like Broken Arrow). Unlike the Beatles where they were able to achieve success by themselves, Robbie pretty much faded away. In my estimation, Robbie had the talent but he needed the other guys to hone it and boost it.
who would you say collaborated enough to be considered the co-author of the band's songs... would robertson/helms/danko be better? or would robertson & the band?
Levon is very bitter about it in his book because Robbie got all the royalties while the rest of them got nothing. A very interesting question. If you ask Robbie, he wrote all the songs. If you ask Garth or Levon, they added important things to them (organ part in Stage Fright, the mouth harp in Cripple Creek to name a few). If you wrote a song, lyrics and basic chord structure and I added a distinctive guitar part would we be co-authors? Probably not. I guess I'm biased with the Band because they were all great musicians so I'd lean towards "RR & the Band" but in a legal, logical kind of way, I'd have to admit he pretty much wrote the songs, defeating my own argument.
wasn't stage fright written by rick danko?
and when i say songwriters... i mean lyrics... if you add in all the other stuff you might as well be evaluating the artist or band as a whole.
Any particular time in their career that you rate as their best? Van Morrison has been at it 40 years and there is a big difference between the songs with Them to solo work like Astral Weeks to current work. Same goes for Bob Dylan...big changes over the years.
i don't know... i'm not an expert on any of these people... but as far as van morrison goes i've always thought astral weeks was pretty average and overrated, i'm a much bigger fan of veedon fleece and moondance, veedon fleece is definitly his best... bob dylan i don't even really listen to that much, i just know the songs i do listen to are amazingly written.