Best? Best? I always get excited when I hear there is a new release by Richard Thompson, Chris Smither, Carol Denney, Lyle Lovett, Joni Mitchell, Tracy Chapman. And I think Dylan is a brilliant songwriter -- not all the time, but no one is brilliant all the time. Leonard Cohen is quite good, and is always releasing new versions of things (he rewrites obsessively). Lucinda Williams, Iris DeMent, Laurie Lewis. Kate Rusby sometimes does brilliant rewrites and sometimes writes total crap, in my opinion. There are a lot of very good songwriters in the world and a lot of very bad ones, too. Oh yeah, and someone should have mentioned Jean Ritchie by now and Debbie McClatchy -- sometimes one song is all it takes.