Well, I managed to stick my big dumb old white guy foot in it again.

An article in “The Atlantic” entitled “The Growing Gender Divide, Three Minutes At A Time,” spotlighted the work of singer/songwriter Sabrina Carpenter, one of a growing list of female singer/songwriters who have overtaken the “air waves” recently.

Of course, to us elders this is nothing new. We saw a giant bloom of female singer/songwriters during the 60s and 70s. Some (but certainly not all) including Janis Ian, Judee Sill, Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins, Laura Nyro and the legendary Carole King. I mentioned some of these artists in a comment and got the response that this was now the younger artists time to shine.

Sigh…

Every generation should be able to claim some music as its own and likewise some artists. But the hubris of younger people that insist that they “invented” something that a lot of us know has been here for a while..my teeth get on edge.

In respect to all of the younger singer/songwriters, none of them would exist without the “confessional works” of Joni Mitchell, Janis Ian and Laura Nyro. Ask any current singer who their influences are and those names will continually pop up because THEY invented the “confessional” genre, along with the now mandatory piece where the artist sits at a white grand piano and soulfully plays a song........

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