Re: Kim Wilson and song writing in general

[Gatorharp@xxxxxxx]

alciere@xxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
<< A friend lent me a Kim Wilson tape-succintly marked Kim Wilson in nice 
block 
 printing on a generic cassette. Nice music, excellent musicianship. The harp 
 playing was damn near perfect. Despite all that, the songs didn't do it for 
 me. Formulaic, kind of flat. I wasn't enamored with the singing either. 
 
 It's hard to write a good song. I think the early 50s was a golden age of 
 blues not only because of the musicians,though they were superb,but also 
 because Willie Dixon wrote such great songs.  >>

by and large, i think you buy a kim wilson album for the harp playing.  he's 
also a really good singer, and he always has good musicians around him.  he 
also has great taste in cover material.  i would agree that, to my tastes, 
his songwriting mostly tends to be a little on the plain side.  at least he 
doesn't write joke-type songs.
i would also agree that writing a good song ~is~ really hard, as someone has 
already said.  writing great songs...man, how do they do it?  often the 
reason people write is for the royalties (not to accuse wilson of this...he 
actually does more covers than originals).  i remember listening to shemekia 
copeland's first album, and wondering why such a great voice was wasted on 
mediocre material, and then i noticed that over half of the songs were 
co-written by her manager/producer.  better than re-doing old warhorses, but 
there's lots of really good and neglected songs waiting to be rediscovered.

steven j gatorman