Acknowledgements
Many of the ideas in this volume have been prompted or investigated organically in the many higher education courses we have taught on popular music and production. In particular, Katherine’s Music Production students at Leeds College of Music (cohorts of 2011–13), and Justin’s Popular Music students at Anglia Ruskin University (2010–12), deserve thanks for the initial exploration of ideas. Education is a two-way process: you all, in your own way, helped to develop this concept.
Our thanks go to all scholars and acquaintances who have tolerated discussions about the themes and issues surrounding the figure of the singer-songwriter. Katherine is particularly grateful to Stan Hawkins and her colleague Bethany Lowe, both of whom who offered prompt and helpful comments on a late draft of her own contribution to this Companion.
We both would like to thank all the contributors to this volume. They were all prompt and professional, and also easy to work with. Many more individuals wanted to contribute to this than we could include, and we also thank them for their interest and for contributing to academic singer-songwriter studies in various arenas. Special thanks to Marcus Aldredge, Simon Barber and Jo Collinson Scott who participated in a special panel on the singer-songwriter at the International Association for Popular Music in University College, Cork in September 2014. And thanks to Lori Burns, Marc Lafrance and Alyssa Woods for letting Justin read their Kanye West paper at the conference. We would like to thank our current institutions, the University of Bristol and Plymouth University, for providing research support for the volume.
We especially want to thank Victoria Cooper at Cambridge University Press for being open-minded enough to listen and discuss the importance of the singer-songwriter to music history and music education. We would also like to thank Fleur Jones, Emma Collison and Kate Brett, the last-named of whom has taken over from Vicki as music editor and has done a fantastic job. The music department at the University of Bristol were generous in helping provide some additional subvention funds for permission costs, and we would like to thank Professor Katharine Ellis for her support in this endeavour. Thanks also to Benedict Todd for helping with some musical examples towards the end of the project.
At the risk of sounding self-congratulatory, we would like to thank each other for a productive and pleasant collaboration. Many colleagues and peers warned about the potential stress and dangers of collaborating with your spouse, but the process has been nothing but a pleasure.
This book is dedicated to our parents, who have been constant sources of encouragement and enthusiasm. Justin: Thanks to my mom, Vicki Corda, who taught me about 1970s singer-songwriters like Carole King and Carly Simon, and my dad, Richard Williams, who taught me about singer-songwriters such as Jim Croce and Roy Orbison. Katherine: Michael and Valerie are enthusiasts of the singer-songwriter idiom, and although they are not musicians by trade they keep the tradition alive. In my youth, they sang Peter, Paul and Mary songs, and two years ago (2013) they attended a Nick Cave performance. Since my childhood passions emerged, they nurtured and supported my loves of music and reading, and have always allowed me the time and space to develop these interests. So this is for you, Mum and Dad: a book, about music.
