I always liked lists when it come to music, even if I’m never really satisfied with any of them, on a personal level. Lists make you think, they can make you rethink, it can make you remember songs or artists that you almost had forgotten, it can make you play that song again – even better, it can make you discover a new song, album or artist that you really didn’t know before, one that will be with you for the rest of your life. For me all this has happened, also within lists I deeply disagree with, from my personal point of view. That’s how it is. The list of great songs, albums, artists, guitarists, singers or songwriters that don’t include your own favorites can make you both frustrated, sad & even angry. Frustrated because you want your favorites to get the nod of honor, to be known and praised so other people can experience what you love about this or that, or of the great feeling of finding something new, sad because you feel so strongly for your personal choices, angry because the one or ones making this actual list might be out of their mind forgetting this obvious candidate, and so on…

What’s funny is that the lists that often get the most response are the lists with the most subjective criteria. Who or what is the best of some kind? Huh? This is obviously questions where the personal taste is what really decides, and of course those lists call for the strongest emotions, often based on “objective” criteria, or maybe even more of a strong faith in that my subjective personal taste really is the objective way of seeing things. In that way one easily can diss the things he or she don’t like, or understand, as rubbish. That’s all right – it’s freedom of speech, of course. Lists with objective criteria, like what album sold most, what artist toured most, what artist earned most money and so on, may lead to some arguing, but really not so much as the lists we love, and the lists that we love to hate.

After Farout Magazine’s list of the “20 Best American Songwriters of All Time”, the debate of course started at once, about what artists who should have been there, and who should not. My thoughts exactly myself, when I saw the list. Someone I loved, someone I didn’t really know that well, and some wasn’t reaching my heart at all. “American” seemed to be defined as USA in this list, some would argue for taking the Canadians in, and so on. On twitter I mentioned some of the songwriters that would have been on my list, but last night I started to write my own, soon understanding that every list of just 20, would be too short for me. Even the ranking feels wrong, not only because it is difficult to compare George & Ira Gershwin and Billy Joe Shaver, even two artists in the same genre can be miles away from each other, but still hit your heart hard, maybe because the song reminds you of something that have been lost, of something sad, of something good – of something you don’t even remember, sometimes far beyond your own description of your taste in music. Other times the songwriter’s lyrics open your eyes, or the melody open your heart, of unknown reasons. What decides your personal taste – it’s a long discussion in itself.

So this is the start of my “Some of the US Songwriters I love”-list. And yes, I know some of them were more known as performing artists, some of them where not known as performing artists at all, some not even known, some of them primarily wrote the lyrics, some of them the music, some of them mostly, or sometimes, wrote together with somebody else and so on, but that’s okay – if I know, or think I know, they had their hands in songs I love, they might be here. They don’t have to write many songs, if one of them caught my eye, ear and/or heart, that’s okay, some one hit wonders might be a wonder, some not. It’s just my list, after all. The start of it, anyway. So – was it the song or was it another artist’s performance of the song, that won my heart – I wouldn’t know. Sometimes I learned about the songwriter years after the song appeared on my unwritten list.

For me, Bob Dylan is in a league of his own, he is the big river of songs, integrating the side rivers from the wellsprings of songs from all the different genres I love, connecting the dots & extending the lines, making new poetic expressions to the already Great American Songbook, making it even greater with his great treasure chest of new songs, spun from both American music, world literature & history, and from his own great memory. For me there is no bigger giant. Then there is a plateau of songwriters that really dig deep in both my history and memory and heart, and a bunch of songwriters that made a mark with just a song or two or few. Maybe I’ll sort them a bit in the future, who knows. The ranking from 2 to 100 will never be my way, I guess. My greatest wish is that somebody can find for them a new (or old) and interesting artist.

So this will be a list of songwriters that has touched my heart, from childhood until today, they are listed alphabetically by their first name, no ranking. Some of them I have written about on my blog earlier, I will enclose some links when I get the time.

NB! This is a work in progress!! I really know there should be a few more songwriters mentioned.…
I very much welcome a reminding of the ones I might have forgotten.
Maybe some of them will enter the list in the future.

BOB DYLAN
**********

Aaron Neville
Al Green
Allen Toussaint
Arthur Alexander
Bessie Smith
Bill Monroe
Billie Holiday
Billy Joe Shaver
Billy Lee Riley
Blaze Foley
Blind Willie Johnson
Blind Willie McTell
Bob Neuwirth
Bobbie Gentry
Bobby Charles
Brian Wilson
Bruce Springsteen
Buck Owens
Buddy Holly
Buddy Miller
Butch Hancock
Carl Perkins
Carole King
Carter Family
Carter Stanley
Charlie Feathers
Charlie Patton
Charlie Rich
Chip Taylor – How I Met Chip Taylor
Cindy Walker
Chuck Berry
Clifton Chenier
Cowboy Jack Clement
Curtis Mayfield
Dallas Frazier
Dan Penn
Dave Barthomolew
David Byrne
David Hidalgo & Louis Pérez
David Olney – Water from a deeper well. About David Olney.
Diana Jones
Dion DiMucci
Doc Pomus
Dolly Parton
Don Gibson
Donnie Fritts
Doug Sahm
Dwight Yoakam
Elizabeth Cotten
Elmore James
Emmylou Harris
Ernest Tubb
Felice & Boudleaux Bryant
Floyd Tillman
Fred Neil        
Fred Rose
George & Ira Gershwin
George Jones
Gram Parsons
Greg Brown – From Brown to Blue
Guy Clark – One Hell of a Guy
Hank Cochran
Hank Williams – Hank Williams and his “Mother’s Best Recordings”
Harlan Howard
Harold Arlen
Hoagy Carmichael
Howlin’ Wolf
Iris DeMent – Making the internal world work better
Ivory Joe Hunter
J B Lenoir
J J Cale
Jackson Browne
Jerry Jeff Walker
Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter
Jesse Winchester – Defying Gravity
Jimmie Dale Gilmore
Jimmie Rodgers – Don’t the Brakeman look good?
Jimmy Webb
Joe Henry
John Hiatt
John Moreland
John Lee Hooker
John Prine
Johnny Cash
Justin Townes Earle
Kate Wolf – The Wolf Will Survive
Kimmie Rhodes
Kris Kristofferson
Laura Nyro
Lee Clayton
Leiber & Stoller
Leon Russell
Lefty Frizzell
Leon Payne
Lightnin’ Hopkins
Link Wray
Little Richard
Little Junior Parker
Little Willie John
Lonnie Johnson
Lloyd Price
Lou Reed
Louvin Brothers
Lucinda Williams
Lyle Lovett
Mary Gauthier – A Country Song In Her Own Right
Marvin Gaye
Merle Haggard
Merle Travis
Mickey Newbury – An American Troubadour
Mississippi John Hurt
Mose Allison
Muddy Waters
Nanci Griffith
Otis Blackwell
Otis Redding
Patti Smith
Paul Simon
Percy Mayfield
Peter Case
Prince
Professor Longhair
Randy Newman
Ray Charles
Rodney Crowell
Robert Johnson
Rodgers & Hart
Roger Miller
Rowland Salley
Roy Orbison
Ry Cooder
Sam Cooke
Shel Silverstein
Sierra Ferrell
Skip James
Stevie Ray Vaughan
Smokey Robinson
Son House
Sonny Boy Williamson II
Steve Earle
Steve Goodman
Steve Young – Forever Young. The Voice of Steve Young.
Stevie Wonder
Terry Allen
Tom Petty
Tom T Hall
Tom Russell
Tom Waits
Townes Van Zandt
Vern Gosdin
Warren Zevon
Washington Phillips
Waylon Jennings
W C Handy
Willie Dixon
Willie Nelson
Woody Guthrie