Various Artists - ‘Rough Trade Shops: Singer Songwriter 1’ (Mute) Released 03/07/06

 

So, let’s try to answer the question then. Listening to this album, a singer-songwriter could be that traditional American story-teller, armed only with an acoustic guitar and a wealth of experience and wisdom: it’s Richard Thompson, it’s Tom Russell, or even Elliot Smith. But could it not also be that maverick spirit that is guided by a vision both singular and uncompromising, the kind of spirit that can be found in places ranging from the DIY ramblings of a Jeffrey Lewis or a Daniel Johnson to the groundbreaking individuality of a Tom Waits or an Antony and The Johnsons? 

 

The essence of a singer-songwriter may well be found in the voice of feminine empowerment, as on Barbara Manning’s ‘Scissors’. It might be lurking in the emancipated voices of Richard Hawley, Tracey Thorn or Lou Barlow, free from the binds of playing in bands or on other people’s songs. On the evidence of, say, Julie Doiron’s ‘Snow Falls In November’, the emphasis would fall flatly on the ‘Singer’ side of the hyphen, but skip a few tracks further to Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds’ ‘Where Do We Go Now But Nowhere’, and the emphasis is on ‘Songwriter’ while the singer falls flat (not that we’d ever change you, Nick!).

 

Bright Eyes, Robert Wyatt, King Creosote, Elvis Costello: these people have nothing in common apart from they have all pushed under that critical umbrella of the singer-songwriter, and more than that, have been carefully selected here to represent the diversity, if not the inadequacy, of that term.  ‘Rough Trade Shops: Singer Songwriter 1’ raises questions rather than answers. It’s random, cross-bred, bastardised, inconsistent and untidy. Because of that, it’s an education. Go get.