If we're compiling a litany of notable female singer-songwriters, let's not omit Lucinda Williams.

She's a little younger than most of the other women mentioned above, and the fact that she didn't achieve real prominence until age 40+ might tend to classify her with a different generation.

I first heard her as a teenager in 1973 and was immediately pretty much awestruck, so I may associate her with that earlier era more readily than most.

One of Lucinda's first songwriting Grammies was for a number recorded by the abovementioned Mary Chapin Carpenter ~ "Passionate Kisses." Since Mary Chapin is herself a great writer, many people don't realize that she did not write that one notable hit.