Ten Greatest 'Female Songwriters'?

A new list draws commentary and candidates, including my own--now add yours here.

Greg Mitchell is the author of more than a dozen books and now writer/director of three award-winning films aired via PBS: please see links at bottom of this post. Before all that, he was a longtime editor of the legendary Crawdaddy. You can still subscribe to this newsletter for free.

A new, hard to defend but harder to resist, list has drawn a lot of attention this week, especially since it came from a venerable publication and claimed to be definitive: “The 10 Greatest Female Songwriters of All Time, Period.” You can follow the American Songwriter link for sketchy bios and a few songs/videos but here is their countdown, from #10 to #1: Taylor Swift, Chrissie Hynde, Lucinda Williams, Brandi Carlile, Ellie Greenwich (songwriting partner of Jeff Barry), Memphis Minnie, Loretta Lynn, Carole King, Dolly Parton, Joni Mitchell.

I should note that their previous list of the ten greatest songwriters overall included only Joni.

I’m not going to take issue here with any of the picks in the respectable new “female” list nor argue about the order (though I could). Others online have proposed or demanded replacements, usually reflecting generational bias, or the typical “Well, I like her.”

I’ll just mention a few of my favorites below—also largely generational—with a few vids, and you can consider them not replacements but “bubbling under the top ten” (as Billboard might put it). Then propose your own additions or complaints. Note: I’m afraid I’ve largely missed in my past listening the likes of PJ Harvey, Kate Bush and even younger worthies such as Adele, Lady Gaga, Alicia Keys, and on and on. Feel free to comment here:

Sheryl Crow

Joan Armatrading

Nina Simone

Sandy Denny

Cynthia Weill (songwriting partner with Barry Mann)

Natalie Merchant

Christine McVie (over Stevie Nicks)

Laura Nyro

Felice Bryant (with husband Boudleaux)

Gillian Welch

Valerie Simpson (partner of Nick Ashford)

Rosanne Cash

Kate & Anna McGarrigle

Of course, one can also make a case for Iris DeMent, Patti Smith, Carly Simon, and on and on. Bonnie Raitt is known as more of an interpreter but has also written great songs such as “Nick of Time” and just last year won the top Grammy for a song she wrote. Billie Holiday wrote little but—”God Bless the Child,” geez. Many others known mainly as singers (e.g. Judy Collins, Emmylou Harris) have also penned a few exceptional ones.

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»Greg Mitchell’s Films and Books

Films: Watch award-winning “Atomic Cover-up” at PBS site and via PBS apps now, or free from Kanopy, and see companion book at Amazon. Watch “Memorial Day Massacre: Workers Die, Film Buried” at PBS site and via apps, also companion book at Amazon. Read about “The First Attack Ads: Hollywood vs. Upton Sinclair” or purchase the DVD here for yourself or your library.

Books include: Best-selling “The Tunnels: Escapes Under the Berlin Wall and the Film JFK Tried to Kill.” Award-winners “The Campaign of the Century: Upton Sinclair’s Race for Governor of California and the Birth of Media Politics” and “The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood—and America—Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.” A New York Times Notable Book, “Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady: Richard Nixon vs. Helen Gahagan Douglas.”

Also, two acclaimed books with Robert Jay Lifton, “Hiroshima in America” and “Who Owns Death? Against Capital Punishment.” On the media and Iraq, “So Wrong for So Long,” with an preface by Bruce Springsteen. And in a different vein, “Vonnegut and Me,” “Journeys With Beethoven” and “Joy in Mudville: A Little League Memoir.”