Which musical artists can you think of that are not songwriters? Do you respect singers who generally write their own songs more than those who have their songs written by someone. I respect songwriters more. They are true artists.

Three Dog Night was a very fine rock band that almost never wrote their own material.

All in all, most of my favorite artists are songwriters. But I have a problem with a lot of today's bands who can't write their way out of a wet paper sack, yet insist on doing all their own material. In the 60s, many of the most popular bands (even in the psychedelic era) did outside tunes in addition to originals, and it's part of why the overall quality of those records is so high.

I really respect great songwriters who are not recording artists, or who make their greatest impact through other people's recordings of their material. Such names as Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Carole King (in the 60s, before Tapestry), Laura Nyro (who was indeed a recording artist, but made her fortune from other people's versions of her greatest songs) and Jimmy Webb immediately come to mind.

I respect singers who have the good sense to do good material...such as Dionne Warwick who was the major voice for Baccarach & David. Contrast her with a singer like B.J.Thomas who was arguably the best male pop singer of his generation,but had to be forced to do 'Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head" and blew his career later making bad choices in material.

Do I respect artists who write their own material more? Hard question. I guess I have to say no. Billie Holiday, Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra for example didn't write (or not much) but I still have lots of respect for them, they were great vocalists and performers.

I just think people who write their own material can get away with a little more.

I certainly have high regard for those who write their own music, BUT you have to understand that performers who don't still certainly have to work with the written music and adapt it to their own style. That requires some knowledge and skill to pull off. Take for example, Elton John. Bernie Taupin wrote most of his music, but I think the transformation to music involved alot of expertise on the part of John.

Elvis was the same. If you listen to the old Sun recordings Elvis changed the fast tempo 'Milk Cow Blues' to a slow tempo song in a flash. He was adaptable like that, just changing the fabric of songs and adapting his vocal style accordingly. He did a bunch of covers of other artists songs, and most people thought he was the original artist because he made those songs 'his own'.

Nice said!!!

There's nothing wrong with performing other peoples music - just look at classical players. It's not even an issue with them. You know you probably can't write a better symphony than Mozart/Beethoven etc., or a better flute sonata than Bach (if you reckon you can, send all scores to me!!). If you can't beat em, join em!

My suspicion is that 'songwriting ability' isn't as important as some make it out to be in this case. We had a 'Elton John vs. Billy Joel' thread a while back and Elton won easily. If you seriously consider songwriting ability into the equation, Joel wins easily having written his own material. But alas, Elvis takes the hit in this thread when it comes to songwriting... hmm.

Well here's what I think. People who rarely or never write their own stuff...this includes both lyrics and the music should not be getting 349279 awards for it. I think the songwriter themselves should be getting the awards...although this will never happen.

Often, the artists record sales and awards make a packet for the songwriter. Look at the guy that worked with N*SYNC, Britney and the Backstreet Boys (UGH!!!! I feel dirty now....) He probably isn't much of a performer, but because he found a sound for the artists he wrote for (and made them successful), he stayed working for a long time. When you weigh up the length of time it takes to write a song against the amount of work that goes into touring, recording, rehearsal etc., who do you reckon does more work to make a song a hit?