You said respectable, Willie hardly fits that image. Oh! as a writer, OK Willie has written some great songs but frankly has covered much better ones than he's ever written.(thats 2 cents worth of opinion.)
My wife is (was) a Neil Diamond fan until he did his Nashville crap that trashed his reputation among the baby boomers.In our house he gets the sour grapes award.
I think all song writers get their share of duds, which is why the studio producers want their artist to toe the line and put out only the marketable stuff. Give me the singer/songwriter good or bad, at least it's honest bad and a pure form of expression.
A good subject for a thread......
Mudjack