The Cambridge Companion to the Singer-Songwriter Cambridge Companions to Music Series

Most often associated with modern artists such as Bob Dylan, Elton John, Don McLean, Neil Diamond, and Carole King, the singer-songwriter tradition in fact has a long and complex history dating back to the medieval troubadour and earlier. This Companion explains the historical contexts, musical analyses, and theoretical frameworks of the singer-songwriter tradition. Divided into five parts, the book explores the tradition in the context of issues including authenticity, gender, queer studies, musical analysis, and performance. The contributors reveal how the tradition has been expressed around the world and throughout its history to the present day. Essential reading for enthusiasts, practitioners, students, and scholars, this book features case studies of a wide range of both well and lesser-known singer-songwriters, from Thomas d'Urfey through to Carole King and Kanye West.

Introduction Katherine Williams and Justin A. Williams; Part I. Establishing a Tradition: 1. The emergence of the singer-songwriter David R. Shumway; 2. Singer-songwriters of the German Lied Natasha Loges and Katy Hamilton; 3. Bill Monroe, bluegrass music, and the politics of authorship Mark Finch; 4. Singer-songwriters and the English folk tradition Allan F. Moore; 5. The Brill Building and the creative labour of the professional songwriter Simon Barber; 6. Forging the singer-songwriter at the Los Angeles Troubadour Christa Bentley; 7. The 'professional' singer-songwriter in the 1970s Michael Borshuk; Part II. Individuals: 8. Thomas D'Urfey Tōru Mitsui; 9. Leadbelly Josep Pedro; 10. Region and identity in Dolly Parton's songwriting Jada Watson; 11. Authorship and performance in the music of Elton John Phil Allcock; 12. Depicting the working class in the music of Billy Joel Joshua S. Duchan; 13. Musical gesture in the songs of Nick Drake Timothy Koozin; 14. Sampling and storytelling: Kanye West's vocal and sonic narratives Lori Burns, Alyssa Woods and Marc Lafrance; 15. James Blake, digital lion Madison Moore; 16. Outside voices and the construction of Adele's singer-songwriter persona Sarah Suhdolnik; 17. Joanna Newsom's 'Only Skin': authenticity, influence, and the relationship between 'new' and 'old weird America' Jo Collinson-Scott; Part III. Men and Women: 18. Gender, race, and the ma(s)king of 'Joni Mitchell' Kevin Fellezs; 19. Gender, genre, and diversity at Lilith Fair Jennifer Taylor; 20. Changing openness and tolerance towards LGBTQ singer-songwriters Katherine Williams; 21. Tori Amos as shaman Chris McDonald; 22. Gender identity, the queer gaze and female singer-songwriters Megan Berry; 23. The female singer-songwriter in the 1990s Sarah Boak; Part IV. Frameworks and Methods: 24. Reconciling theory and practice in the teaching of songwriting Mark Marrington; 25. Singer-songwriters and open mics Marcus Aldredge; 26. Singer-songwriter authenticity, the unconscious and emotions (feat. Adele's 'Someone Like You') Rupert Till; Part V. Global Perspectives: 27. Don McGlashan and local authenticity Nick Braae; 28. Italian Canzone d'autore and Greek Entecho tragoudi: a comparative overview Franco Fabbri and Ioannis Tsioulakis; 29. Singer-songwriters in the digital age Lucy Bennett.

Katherine Williams is Lecturer in Music at the University of Plymouth. Her monograph Rufus Wainwright is forthcoming in 2016 and she has published in Jazz Perspectives, the Jazz Research Journal and the Journal of Music History Pedagogy. She was awarded the Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation/Jazz Education Network Research Fellowship 2015 to conduct research on Duke Ellington. She is active as a saxophonist, and regularly works with contemporary composers to create and perform new music for saxophone and electronics.
Justin A. Williams is Lecturer in Music at the University of Bristol, author of Rhymin' and Stealin': Musical Borrowing in Hip-Hop (2013) and editor of The Cambridge Companion to Hip-Hop (Cambridge, 2015). As a professional trumpet and piano player in California, he ran a successful jazz piano trio and played with the band Bucho!, who won a number of Sacramento Area Music Awards and were signed to two record labels.