Well, Sminky, I think you WILL hear a prejudice against "singer-songwriter" music around these parts.

Thanks for the confirmation, Joe.

Here in the UK we've had singer-songwriters for quite some time (several hundred years in fact). Some of the current ones are listed above. Centuries ago they were known variously as minstrels, troubadours, waits, though they tended to compose to order. However, in between, we've had countless unknown individuals who have sung "the songs he/she has written". They sang them to their friends and fellow workers, at work and maybe later in the village pub. And people joined in because these songs had a "communal aspect".

Some of the songs were obviously not very good and they vanished, never to be heard again.

But some of were obviously deemed so good that they spread outside the village boundaries. Some indeed spread throughout the whole country and beyond (some even spread as far as the US). But because they were passed on by word of mouth and people's memories aren't always reliable, some of the words got changed along the way.

And today, we call this type of "music that has withstood the test of time" traditional . And clubs sprang up where such songs can still be sung and heard. And, with the advance of technology, we have forums like Mudcat where such songs can be discussed.

And it's all down to singer-songwriters. And they are still around.

I do hope you change your mind about them, Joe, because we owe them everything.