| I recently came across a “Rolling Stone” archive ranking the 100 all-time greatest rock songwriters. Here are the magazine’s top ten: 10) At age 13, Stevland Hardaway Morris became the youngest solo artist to top the Billboard Hot 100 with his single, “Fingertips”. “Stevie Wonder” would write and record many more sixties hits including “Uptight”. In the early seventies, Stevie became the only artist to win the best album Grammy with three consecutive albums: “Innervisions”, “Fulfillingness First Finale” and “Songs in the Key of Life”. Stevie’s prolific songwriting has continued during the eighties and beyond. 9) Joni Mitchell’s eleven Grammy awards are very impressive and I understand why she is so beloved. However I question her making the top ten. “Both Sides Now” and “Big Yellow Taxi’ are outstanding compositions but this rock fan can only name a handful of other Mitchell songs. 8) I’m not a huge admirer of Paul Simon’s post- “Simon and Garfunkel” work but I concur with his being named #8.. His sixties compositions such as “Homeward Bound” and “Scarborough Fair” are superb while “The Sounds of Silence” and “Bridge Over Troubled Water” are transcendent. 7) The body of work written by Carole King and her collaborator/husband Gerry Goffin is extraordinary. Carole wrote the melodies while Gerry wrote the lyrics to many iconic songs. “Up on the Roof,” “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” and “I’m into Something Good” are just three of the many hits the duo wrote. John Lennon observed “When Paul and I first got together, we wanted to be the British Goffin and King.” After her divorce from Goffin, Carole recorded the seminal album “Tapestry” which included her compositions ‘So Far Away” and “You’ve Got a Friend”. 6) Clocking in at number six is the team of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Like Lennon/McCartney, Jagger and Richards didn’t always write together. “Happy” was all Keith while “Brown Sugar” was all Mick. But, overall, both songwriters had an imprint on the Stones’ top hits. 5) Smokey Robinson’s first successful composition was the 1960 hit, “Shop Around”. He would go on to write sensational songs such as The Temptations’ “My Girl” and ironically Mary Wells’ “My Guy”. Smokey composed a dozen Top 20 hits for “The Miracles” including the epic “Tracks of My Tears”. Paul McCartney said that “Smokey was like God in our eyes”. Bob Dylan called Smokey “the greatest living poet”. 4) In the 1950s, Chuck Berry switched from playing the blues to creating “songs of novelties and feelings of fun and frolic”. Chuck transformed a country song “Ida Red” into his first top single “Maybellene”. His influence over sixties artists was profound. Bob Dylan based the cadence of “Subterranean Homesick Blues” on Berry’s “Too Much Monkey Business” while Jagger and Richards borrowed from Berry’s “30 Days,” to create “Satisfaction”. John Lennon opined “If you gave rock & roll another name, you might call it Chuck Berry.” 3) John Lennon set an example for sixties rock groups by incorporating lessons learned from the great fifties artists including Berry, Elvis, Buddy Holly and Little Richard. After driving through Colorado and hearing non-stop Beatles on the car radio, Dylan realized “they were pointing the direction where music had to go.” 2) The aforementioned Mr. Dylan says of Paul McCartney, “I’m in awe of McCartney. He’s about the only one that I’m in awe of.” John Lennon observed “Even in the early days we used to write things separately because Paul was always more advanced than I was.” 1) “Blowin in the Wind”, ”The Times They are a Changing” and “Like a Rolling Stone” are a good start to the discussion. Those songs deeply effected many songwriters including Stevie Wonder, Johnny Cash and Sam Cooke. Dylan has written hundreds more songs that are sometimes entertaining but almost always thought provoking. BTW, the Dylan biopic, ‘A Complete Unknown” is terrific. In case you were wondering: “Rolling Stone” places Bob Marley # 11. He is immediately followed by Brian Wilson, Hank Williams, and Springsteen. Have a great weekend. Rock On !!!! |
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