Marc Platt - The Singer Songwriter: Pop Gallery eBooks, #7

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Of all the genres of popular music, defining the singer-songwriter is tough because they all crossover into each other. Taylor Swift is a very different type of singer-songwriter than Bruce Springsteen , yet they both fall into this category.

Im sure you (like me) think of the CLASSIC singer-songwriters like James Taylor, Carole King, Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell . They are all covered in here, but so are some of the more obscure artists like Warren Zevon, Elliott Smith, Elliott Murphy and Nick Drake .

I have made sure to throw in Quick Reviews and Context for these artists as well as observations and Anecdotes to add a little flavor to their stories and music. There are iTunes links for every song (when possible) so you can sample and/or download if you feel inclined to do so.

I want to make it as easy as possible for every generation to become familiar with the unfamiliar and re-connect the fans already in the know.

Technology is a tricky thing to maneuver when it comes to music. Many records have been out of print for decades, but as you will see iTunes has done a great job keeping those songs alive. I mostly have vinyl, but Im grateful that these songs are available digitally so YOU can be the judge yourself. You dont have to take my word for it.

Marc Platt

Los Angeles, 2015

B ob Dylan started off life in Hibbing, Minnesota. He discovered music at an early age first loving rock and roll, but felt ...the songs weren't serious or didn't reflect life in a realistic way. I knew that when I got into folk music, it was more of a serious type of thing , he reflected in the liner notes for his Biograph retrospective. He went on to say that in folk music ...t he songs are filled with more despair, more sadness, more triumph, more faith in the supernatural, much deeper feelings .

Love him or hate him, Bob Dylan is and was the MOST-influential artist of his generation. He mimicked his heroes Woody Guthrie and Ramblin Jack Elliott . He has been copied and mimicked by his legions of followers. John Lennon and George Harrison of The Beatles openly speak of his influence. Donovan was vilified in England as Dylan s copycat.

The strange irony of critics accusing either Dylan OR his imitators plagiarizing styles is the fact that folk music is set up to be exactly that way. DEFINITION OF FOLK MUSIC: music that originates in traditional popular culture or that is written in such a style. Folk music is typically of unknown authorship and is transmitted orally from generation to generation.

America and England, for some strange reason seem to have a problem with that fact. In those days all the folk artists were covering the same songs live and on their records. The fact that Dylan could write and perform his own music and gather such a huge following, irked the folk establishment.

In 1963 Dylan released his seminal folk recording Freewheelin Bob Dylan . It had songs like Blowin In The Wind and Masters of War on it and really infused the folkies in the country.

The Freewheelin Bob Dylan is a major recording that changed the way folk and pop music approached lyric writing. The folk music medium allowed heady thinking and protest music. Pop music was not taken nearly as seriously.

What Freewheelin did was fuse folk and pop music for the first time. Rockers like The Beatles, Byrds, Lovin Spoonful, The Animals and The Turtles all listened closely and it affected them in a big way. Without this album, it is possible Folk Rock may have looked very different. It was an album of its time, yet is still very listenable today.

This is a very important document in popular music history.

Think about the way it affected one guy, John Lennon . Would there have been songs like In My Life without Dylan s influence? This is the album all these artists listened to in their formative days and nights.

In 1965, Dylan released his first Folk Rock album Bringing it all back Home. When he went electric in 1965, the establishment went crazy at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival when he brought that band onstage. They booed and jeered. Bob Dylan laughed all the way to the bank, as his current single at the time Like a Rolling Stone shot up to number one. That song was voted the GREATEST SONG EVER by Rolling Stone Magazine in their top 500 songs. That masterpiece does not appear on this record, but was just as responsible for the Dylan -Goes-Electric controversy as the songs on this record performed that night in Newport, Rhode Island like Maggies Farm.

The performance at Newport was much maligned by the folkies who wanted their Bobby to stay true to his folk roots. The just-released L ike a Rolling Stone (produced by Tom Wilson ) was just starting to grab the AM radio airwaves. This album is the bridge from the folky Dylan to the rock star Dylan . That is why it is included in this book. He had monster recordings after this like Blonde on Blonde, Nashville Skyline and Blood on the Tracks, but this record serves a very important part of the puzzle.

Y ou know his catalog, but let us review just for kicks: Blowin In The Wind, The Times They are a Changin , Like a Rolling Stone, Lay Lady Lay, Tangled Up In Blue , Knockin On Heavens Door, Mr. Tambourine Man , Subterranean Homesick Blues , It Aint Me Babe, The Grooms Still Waiting At The Altar and The Man in the Long Black Coat. These are just some of the highlights. I left out Hurricane and All Along the Watchtower .