Singer Songwriter

If you write, perform and perhaps record your own songs, you could well be classed as a singer-songwriter. Growing out of folk traditions, performers such as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger (in the US) and artists of the British folk boom of the late 1950s and 60s (Ewan MacColl, Martin Carthy) popularised a form of 'modern' folk that maintained a connection with the past, but updated the themes to more contemporary concerns.
Soon a wave of gifted songwriters dominated both radio playlists and the album charts: Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Carole King, Leonard Cohen. These are solo artists who may have employed rock musicians to back them but remained focussed on the art and craft of songwriting. The 1960s and 70s were only the beginning, of course. Subsequent decades have gifted us Paul Kelly, Tracy Chapman, k.d. lang and Elliott Smith.
So whether it’s Stevie Wonder or Taylor Swift, Courtney Barnett or Sufjan Stevens, if you enjoy melody and poetic lyrics, stories and human adventures, you will love exploring this sub-genre of Rock.