by bob_32_116 » Wed Mar 16, 2016 8:32 am
^^ While I am in broad agreement, I would place the golden era as beginning around 1966 and ending sometime around 1975 or 1976. I didn't take a lot of notice what the bands were wearing, I only knew them via the radio.
Poor old Matt monro. Music was indeed moving on - and the most important aspect of that was not so much the music itself - though that was also evolving fast - but the relationship between the singer and the thing they were singing. Matt was part of the old breed of entertainers. He selected songs, or had them selected for him; he sang them, he did so in front of audiences and in front of studio microphones for people's enjoyment. He belongs in the same categorisation as people like Elvis Presley, Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones, Sandie Shaw, Engelbert Humperdinck, Dionne Warwick, Michael Jackson. He was an entertainer, not an artist.
The new breed of singer/songwriters were artists, i.e. creators. This includes people like Bob Dylan, Donovan, Bob Lind, Love, the Lovin' Spoonful, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Joni Mitchell, Stevie Wonder, Led Zeppelin etc. And of course a certain band from Liverpool. Their songs were their own, or if they were written by others they were rendered in such a distinctive style that they made them a totally new product. Best example: Hendrix - All Along the Watchtower.
Carole King perhaps better than anyone else personified this change. For many years she and her husband were the unseen songwriting partnership behind other people's hits. Suddenly, in 1971, her album Tapestry (not her first, but the first one that most people know of) announced her arrival as a singer/songwriter.
This, in my opinion, is the enduring legacy of the late 1960's - the rise of the artist, as opposed to the entertaineer.
^^ While I am in broad agreement, I would place the golden era as beginning around 1966 and ending sometime around 1975 or 1976. I didn't take a lot of notice what the bands were wearing, I only knew them via the radio.
Poor old Matt monro. Music was indeed moving on - and the most important aspect of that was not so much the music itself - though that was also evolving fast - but the relationship between the singer and the thing they were singing. Matt was part of the old breed of entertainers. He selected songs, or had them selected for him; he sang them, he did so in front of audiences and in front of studio microphones for people's enjoyment. He belongs in the same categorisation as people like Elvis Presley, Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones, Sandie Shaw, Engelbert Humperdinck, Dionne Warwick, Michael Jackson. He was an entertainer, not an artist.
The new breed of singer/songwriters were artists, i.e. creators. This includes people like Bob Dylan, Donovan, Bob Lind, Love, the Lovin' Spoonful, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Joni Mitchell, Stevie Wonder, Led Zeppelin etc. And of course a certain band from Liverpool. Their songs were their own, or if they were written by others they were rendered in such a distinctive style that they made them a totally new product. Best example: Hendrix - All Along the Watchtower.
Carole King perhaps better than anyone else personified this change. For many years she and her husband were the unseen songwriting partnership behind other people's hits. Suddenly, in 1971, her album Tapestry (not her first, but the first one that most people know of) announced her arrival as a singer/songwriter.
This, in my opinion, is the enduring legacy of the late 1960's - the rise of the [b]artist[/b], as opposed to the [b]entertaineer[/b].