You have probably heard Mary Chapin Carpenter’s hits but if you haven’t dug in deeper into her catalog you don’t really know Mary. Dig a little deeper and I guarantee you will find treasure.
I heard “Fast Car” and fell in love with her voice. I think you will love her as well. Telling Stories is my favorite Tracy song. I hope you enjoy it as well and become a fan.
John David Souther is one of the best songwriters of all time. You might not have ever heard his name but i would almost guarantee you have heard his songs. As it turns out, even though he might not have the hits to show for it, he does his own songs better than anyone else. I hope you enjoy Silver Blue. Check out his solo catalog and the two albums produced by The Souther, Hillman, Furray Band, one of the most interesting supergroups of all time.
I first became familiar with Karla from Linda Ronstadt’s album Hasten Down The Wind which includes a couple of Karla’s songs, Lose Again and Someone To Lay Down Beside me being the stand outs. I was blown away but really fell in love with her when her self-titled solo album was released. She was on tour with Jackson Browne supporting that album and I saw two of those shows. Those performances showed me that she was a true triple threat: singer, songwriter, and performer. Check her out and you will not be disappointed.
If you were around in the early 70s chances are that you fell in love with a song called Stuck In the Middle with You by a Scottish duo called Stealers Wheel. Stealers Wheel consisted of Joe Eagan and Gerry Rafferty. Both Joe and Gerry produced solo albums after the breakup of Stealers Wheel but it was Gerry that emerged as the true talent. You’ve probably heard Baker Street but there is so much more to Gerry than just that song. I have provided one example for you to listen to but there is much more for you to discover in his catalog. Unfortunately we lost Gerry a little over a year ago. RIP Gerry!
Steve Earle is an amazing talent but more importantly he is an amazing human being. In addition to being a great singer/songwriter, he is a political activist that uses his music to champion causes such as abolition of capital punishment and the anti-war movement. The song I have for you here is The Revolution Starts Now which was written to support the John Kerry presidential campaign in 2004 and to express his anti-war views. The song means as much today as it did 8 years ago. Give a listen to more of his music if you like The Revolution Starts Now.
When your career starts with the formation of Traffic, one of the best groups from the late 60s and early 70s, you could easily spend the remainder of your career resting on your laurels. To Dave Mason’s credit he did not take this path, instead he produced some of my favorite music as a solo artist. He not only wrote and performed his own great songs as a solo artists but he was also a great interpreter of songs written by others. If you have never heard his version of Bob Dylan’s All Along The Watchtower, you are really missing a treat. The song I have for you today is Look at You Look At Me from his debut solo album called Alone Together.
As an aside you might be interested to know that a small percentage of the Alone Together albums were pressed with what was intended to be swirls of color. Unfortunately these albums came out in an unappealing shade of light brown that kind of reminds me of vomit. I am the “lucky” owner of one of these colored albums. Fortunately the music makes up for the color of the vinyl.
Cat Steven’s Tea For the Tillerman and Teaser and the Firecat released in 1970 and 1971 respectively were two of the best back to back albums produced by any singer/songwriter. The video above is a live performance of Wild World from the BBC. Give Cat a listen if you haven’t already. By the way he currently performs as Yusuf Islam after his conversion to Islam in 1977.
As a personal aside, a southern group called The Gentrys had a minor hit with Wild World in 1971 and they performed at my High School Prom that year.
Pete is the most current artist on my list of the 12 most under appreciated singer/songwriters. Strange Condition, the song I have for you here, is from his debut album musicforthemorningafter that was released in 2001. I really enjoy his music and hope you will give him a listen if you aren’t already a fan.
I am going to be busy the next couple of weeks so I have prepared a series of posts that highlight the twelve singer/songwriters that I think are most under appreciated. We will go in reverse order leading up to the individual that I think is the most under appreciated of all. By the way, I used the following criteria to select these 12 artists: length of career; consistency of song writing/performance quality; and popular awareness of their deep catalog (going beyond their hits).
I hope you enjoy these posts and find someone new whose music you can explore. I love them all so you won’t go wrong with any of them. Check back tomorrow for the first post in this series.
thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard 