toomanyhatz wrote:GoogaMooga wrote:The evolution of popular music into singer-songwriter was not necessarily for the better.
Indeed. Re: Jimbo's post: yes, there are plenty of singers and musicians out there that would have left us much better off had they not been so "honest" as to try to express themselves by writing their own songs.
There are a few songs, apparently, for which the Elvis co-write is actually accurate. I'd say waiting till you actually have something to say is a lot more honest than pouring your heart out every time you have a bad date or a pimple.
Agreed.
And pre-Beatles it was pretty unusual for singers to also be songwriters (of course, there are exceptions - I'm generalizing). So Jimbo was looking for a great performer and singer who synthesized various strands of music into rock & roll and who was white but sounded black and caused teenage hysteria and and wrote all his own material and Elvis doesn't measure up? That's a pretty tall order.