Charlie, your definition of "singer-songwriter stuff" is much narrower than mine. Mine includes the personal as well as the universal, the subjective as well as the objective, and definitely is not limited to 1-4-5 progressions.

That's the problem with definitions, though -- they all rely on other words, which we may also define differently, so the potential for misunderstanding grows exponentially. But I continue to view the "singer-songwriter" genre as something that grew primarily from a folk tradition, and integrates influences from a number of other folk traditions.