Editing Singer-songwriter (section)

== Biography ==
The label "singer-songwriter" (or "song-writer/singer"<ref>
{{cite news
| title                 = Pop/Jazz
| url                   = https://books.google.com/books?id=IeQCAAAAMBAJ
| department            = Nightlife
| work                  = New York Magazine
| date=13 October 1980 | volume                = 13
| issue                 = 40
| publisher             = New York Media, LLC
| publication-date      = 13 October 1980
| page                  = 111 
| issn                  = 0028-7369
| access-date           = 18 April 2021
| quote                 = Topical song-writer/singer Tom Paxton.
}}
</ref>) is used by record labels and critics to define [[popular-music|popular music]] artists who write and perform their own material, which is often self-accompanied – generally on acoustic guitar or piano.<ref>
{{cite book
 | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=pJvzEzjahkQC&pg=PA198
 | editor-last= Shepherd|editor-first= John| title= Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World: Volume 11: Performance and Production
 | publisher= [[Continuum International Publishing Group|Continuum]]
 | year= 2003|isbn= 0-8264-6322-3|access-date= 18 April 2021 | page = 198
 | quote = Referring to popular music-artists who write and perform their own material (often self-accompanied, most frequently on acoustic guitar or piano), the term 'singer-songwriter' is usually (although not exclusively) applied to certain performers in the rock, folk and pop genres.
}}
</ref>
Such an artist performs the roles of [[composer]], [[lyricist]], vocalist, sometimes instrumentalist, and often self-manager.<ref>{{cite book|page= vi|last= Rodgers|first= Jeffrey Pepper|title= The Complete Singer-Songwriter: A Troubadour's Guide to Writing, Performing, Recording & Business|publisher= [[Hal Leonard Corporation]]|year= 2003|isbn= 0-87930-769-2|url= https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780879307691}}</ref> According to [[AllMusic]], singer-songwriters' lyrics are often personal but veiled by elaborate metaphors and vague imagery, and their creative concern is to place emphasis on the song rather than on their performance of it. Most records by such artists have a similarly straightforward and spare sound that places emphasis on the song itself.<ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.allmusic.com/subgenre/singer-songwriter-ma0000002855|title= singer-songwriter|publisher= [[AllMusic]]|access-date= 17 July 2013}}</ref>

The term may also characterise songwriters in the [[rock music|rock]], [[folk music|folk]], [[country music|country]], and [[Pop music|pop-music]] genres – including [[Henry Russell (musician) |Henry Russell]] (1812–1900), [[Aristide Bruant]] (1851–1925), [[Hank Williams]] (1923–1953), and [[Buddy Holly]] (1936–1959). The phrase "singer-songwriter", recorded from 1949,<ref>
{{oed | singer-songwriter}}
</ref> came into popular usage from the 1960s onwards<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=singer-songwriter&year_start=1900&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Csinger%20-%20songwriter%3B%2Cc0|title=Google Books Ngram Viewer|website=books.google.com|access-date=30 May 2021}}</ref> to describe songwriters who followed particular stylistic and thematic conventions, particularly lyrical introspection, confessional songwriting, mild musical arrangements, and an understated performing style.<ref name="Shepherd">{{cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=pJvzEzjahkQC&pg=PA198|editor-last= Shepherd|editor-first= John|page= 198|title= Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World: VolumeIt 11: Performance and Production|publisher= [[Continuum International Publishing Group| Continuum]]|year= 2003|isbn= 0-8264-6322-3|access-date= 17 July 2013 | quote = The term itself came into common usage in the 1960s and had its roots in the folk revival.}}</ref> According to writer Larry David Smith, because it merged the roles of composer, writer, and singer, the popularity of the singer-songwriter phenomenon reintroduced the Medieval [[troubadour]] tradition of "songs with public personalities" after the [[Tin Pan Alley]] era in American popular music.<ref>{{cite book|last= Brackett|first= David|page= [https://archive.org/details/darkmirrorpathol0000brac/page/47 47]|title= Dark Mirror: The Pathology of the Singer-Songwriter|publisher= [[Greenwood Publishing Group]]|year= 2008|isbn= 978-0-275-99898-1|url= https://archive.org/details/darkmirrorpathol0000brac/page/47}}</ref> Song topics of singer-songwriters from the [[American folk music revival]] include [[political protest]], as in the case of [[Woody Guthrie]] (1912–1967) and [[Pete Seeger]] (1919–2014).<ref>{{cite journal|url= https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9780203124888.ch3|title= The Routledge History of Social Protest in Popular Music|website= [[Routledge| Routledge Handbooks Online]]|doi= 10.4324/9780203124888.ch3|access-date= 21 August 2020}}</ref> According to the [[File:Pete Seeger NYWTS.jpg|thumb|Singer-songwriter Pete Seeger of The Weavers, on banjo in 1955]]''Journal of Popular Music Studies'', from the [[folk revival]] and onward into its permanence in pop music, the role of a singer-songwriter has involved several dimensions of creative identity:

{{quote|The first aesthetic layer encourages songwriters to sing and perform their own works and to instill their own stylistic flavors into the song texts. The songwriters are not independent from the works once they are finished; rather, they enter into, activate, and authenticate the song texts through their vocal and musical performances. While the first layer does not always require the singer to be the songwriter, the second [[sociological]] layer not only fixates on the relationship between singer and songwriter (in this case, singer-songwriter is often hyphenated instead of using a slash between singer and songwriter), but also solicits more sociological [[agency (sociology)|agency]] aside from singing and songwriting, such as arranging, mixing, producing, collaborating, and media management. In other words, a singer-songwriter thus undergoes a thickening process involving two-layered voices, including performing stylistic persona, amassing other voices, and coordinating other sociological skills. This thickening process demonstrates the fluid, multiple, and heterogeneous voices underneath the singular authorial image, thus complicating the notion of authorship for singer-songwriters.<ref>
{{cite journal
|last1= Qu|first1= Shuwen|last2= Xiao|first2= Jian|date= 1 March 2020
|url= https://online.ucpress.edu/jpms/article/32/1/78/109165/The-Making-of-Singer-songwritersExploring-the
|access-date= 21 August 2020
|title= The Making of Singer-songwriters: Exploring the Authorship and Ethos of Contemporary Folk Music in Mainland China
|journal= Journal of Popular Music Studies|volume= 32|issue= 1|pages= 78–105
|doi= 10.1525/jpms.2020.32.1.78|s2cid= 214064465|via= [[University of California Press]]
}}
</ref>
}}