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Singers and Songwriters was a 19-volume album series issued by Time-Life in the US, during the early 2000s, spotlighting songs from the singer-songwriter era of the 1970s. There was an identically-named 29 volume series available in the UK and Europe, with different track listings and different, but similar artwork. Songs on the series included music written and performed by an artist, and artists who covered a well-known songwriter's material; as such, a large majority of the music was stylistically similar to what was heard on soft rock and (sometimes) contemporary hit radio stations during the 1970s and early 1980s.
Much like Time-Life's other series chronicling popular music, volumes in the "Singers and Songwriters" series covered a specific time period, including two-year spans in some volumes and parts of a given decade in others. Each volume was issued on a compact disc or cassette. Individual volumes generally contained two albums of 12 tracks each (24 songs per volume), and represented the highlighted time period's most popular and noteworthy tracks. The UK/European series had 15 tracks per disc making 30 tracks per volume. Also included was a booklet, containing liner notes written by some of the most respected historians of the genre, photographs of the artists, and information on the songs (writers, performers and peak position on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart).
"Singers and Songwriters" was first issued in the US in the winter of 2000, with the first volume in the series titled Singers and Songwriters: 1972–1973. As was the case with Time-Life's other series, "Singers and Songwriters" was advertised in television and magazine advertisements. The series was available by subscription (by calling a 1-800 number); those who purchased the series in that fashion received a new volume roughly every other month (on the format of their choice), and had the option of keeping the volumes they wanted.
Each volume was also offered for individual sale. When the series was fully issued, a customer could purchase the entire series at once (or a group of albums, as packaged by Time-Life as part of a promotion), often at a discounted price.
New volumes continued to be issued through 2002, the final one being a volume titled Singers and Songwriters: Hard to Find Hits; an additional single-disc volume not included in the subscription series (but available for sale) was titled Singers and Songwriters: The Classics. Time-Life continued to offer "Singers and Songwriters" through the latter half of the 2000s.
All told, the US series had 432 tracks (429 songs with three titles repeated on various volumes). The UK/European series was much more expansive, finally comprising 870 tracks.
However, due to licensing restrictions, some of the songs in the original series were replaced with other songs instead, Artists like Gilbert O'Sullivan, Bob Seger, Neil Young, and some of the familiar songs from James Taylor, including "You've Got A Friend", "Shower the People", and the more familiar songs from Joni Mitchell, including "You Turn Me On, I'm a Radio", and "Help Me", and Paul Simon, including "50 Ways to Leave your Lover", and "Mother and Child Reunion", and "Loves Me like a Rock" could not be included, due to the demands and high expenses imposed though the publishing companies The Gilbert O'Sullivan song "Alone Again Naturally" was omitted in the later collection due to the licensing restrictions issues. The song "Fool, If you think it's Over" by Chris Rea, is a different version of the song. In the original version Rea's voice was sped up. Rea was never happy with that recording and although a hit in the US wanted the original version buried. The re-recording is Rea singing in his normal voice. The Stevie Nicks song, plus the songs that Nicks did with Fleetwood Mac, could not be used in this collection, due to the same licensing restrictions.
As with many of Time-Life Records' multi-volume releases, the volumes were not issued in a logical, sequential order by date or era of the subject; that is, issuing volumes covering the 1960s before progressing into the 1970s. In the track information section, the volumes will be listed sequentially by era; the following list is the order in which the volumes were released. Also, unlike their other compilation series, Singers and Songwriters includes the album versions of songs rather than the single or radio edits.
The UK/European Series
All of the European series had the prefix TL SSW/nn where nn is the catalogue number. There were 28 titles in the series plus a Christmas album with a different catalogue number. They were all double CDs with 15 tracks on each disc, making a total of 870 tracks, double the total number of the US series.
2001
TL SSW/01 – Singers and Songwriters 1973–1976
TL SSW/02 – Singers and Songwriters 1970–1972
TL SSW/03 – Singers and Songwriters 1977–1979
TL SSW/04 – Singers and Songwriters 1965–1969
TL SSW/05 – Singers and Songwriters 1980–1983
TL SSW/06 – Singers and Songwriters The Classics
TL SSW/07 – Singers and Songwriters Late 60s
TL SSW/08 – Singers and Songwriters Early 70s
TL SSW/09 – Singers and Songwriters Late 70s
2002
TL SSW/10 – Singers and Songwriters Early 80s
TL SSW/11 – Singers and Songwriters 1970–1974
TL SSW/12 – Singers and Songwriters 1975–1979
TL SSW/13 – Singers and Songwriters 1964–1969
TL SSW/14 – Singers and Songwriters 1980–1986
TL SSW/15 – Singers and Songwriters The Originals
2003
TL SSW/16 – Singers and Songwriters The Folk Years
TL SSW/17 – Singers and Songwriters Diary
TL SSW/18 – Singers and Songwriters Storytellers
TL SSW/19 – Singers and Songwriters All Through The 89s
TL SSW/20 – Singers and Songwriters Mavericks
TL SSW/21 – Singers and Songwriters Made In Australia (released 2002)
TL SSW/22 – Singers and Songwriters 1960–1964
TL SSW/23 – Singers and Songwriters Protest Songs
TL SSW/24 – Singers and Songwriters Pure and Simple
2004
TL SSW/25 – Singers and Songwriters Allstars
TL SSW/26 – Singers and Songwriters Lady Writers
TL SSW/27 – Singers and Songwriters Once Upon A Time In The West
TL SSW/28 – Singers and Songwriters Country USA
TL XXD/08 – Singers and Songwriters Christmas
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(single disc only; 20 tracks)