My favorite band is Fleetwood Mac. I always tell people it's good for my soul. There's just something about their music that gets to me.

It's in my profile - The Late Great Stevie Ray Vaughan, I'll resist the temptation of linking a video. His rendition of Little Wing is in a word' brilliant.'

Karen Carpenter's voice melts me. So does Linda Ronstadt.

Leonard Cohen, and Ferron.

Neil Diamond writes the most beautiful songs. He writes with his heart. So many songs and all done so well. I particularly like the sound track from Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Sweet Caroline is from his fun and happy side.

Neil Young, CSNY, Dave Rawlings and Gillian Welch, Emmylou Harris, John Lennon, John Prine, Steve Earle, The Band

Janis Joplin, she's classic and I just "get" her music.

I like all that you've mentioned but John Prine is absolutely my favorite lyricist. I like a song that tells a story most of all and his do and do it well.

I appreciated the lyrics of Neil Peart, thus the music of RUSH (Canadian Power ) ...but anymore, it’s so high energy I really have to be pumped to appreciate it. Neil had help from Geddy Lee … which reminds me of this great interview:

Rhyannon Giddens stole my heart on the documentary "Another Day/Another Time: celebrating the music of Inside Llewyn Lewis". She can cuss me out in gaelic and i will just say... "thank you madam may I get another?"

Nick Drake and Van Morrison need to be in this list somewhere too.

I love music. If I'm not listening or playing most likely I'm discussing it with someone. I've been on a Lucinda Williams kick for a year or so, I think she is the most erotic and sexy singer maybe ever, Her band is first rate and perfectly suited to her. No frills, bare bones, gritty, steaming, great arrangements with no backup singers because her voice is the only voice I want to hear. It's funny to say that the song that got my attention to her was "Get Right With God" It's "Fundamentalist Religious Porn". I am dying to know just what that girl feels so guilty about. I know it ain't noting nice. Safe to say she "resonates" with me.

I am into most every genre I can think of other than Opera.There are several artists and songs Id call "resonators" . They are the soundtrack of my life. They stir feelings and it feels personal. I'l list just mention a few, Roger Mc Quin, Mike Bloomfield, The Band, Jon Doe with or without X, Van Morrison, The Stones, Jon Coltrane, Mother Earth, Dion, Talking Heads, Roky Erickson, Beat Farmers, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Muddy Waters, John Lennon, George Harrison, and many more but I can't think because Lucinda keeps distracting me.

I think Donny Hathaway could sing the telephone book and make it sound like the world is ending. In my opinion he's the greatest soul singer ever. Shame he committed suicide the year I was born. Would have loved to hear the songs he would have sang after that day.

Other singers/songwriters: Jackson Browne, Bruce Hornsby, Leon Russell, and Bonnie Raitt just to name a few.

Yes is my favorite band and is what my soul sounds like when it's at peace.

Pretty much anything by Glen Phillips has that effect on me. He's better known as the singer/primary songwriter for Toad The Wet Sprocket. He's had a solid but largely under the radar solo career as well.

I'm a Sufjan Stevens addict.

For me the last 20 years have only introduced me to Utah Phillips who died 10 years ago in May 2008 at the comparatively young age of 73. I could have put one of the hundreds of YouTube videos of his performances up but I won't because I know that somewhere out there are archives of the 100+ radio programmes that he broadcast and starred in. So I'm hoping someone else will dance their fingers on the keyboard, locate the url and post it as a reply to this post of mine.

[reuther.wayne.edu]

Beth Hart. I just discovered her a couple of years ago and completely fell in love with her music.

Tom Waits and Fiona Apple

I'm a full on metal head but when it comes to singer-songwriters you just can't beat the late great Warren Zevon!!

Shaun Morgan (Seether)

Warren Zevon, Ray Wylie Hubbard, James McMurtry, Townes, Steve Earle, Springsteen, Dylan and many more.

I love James Hetfield of Metallica and Lemmy Killmister of Moterhead. Their works of guided my understanding of people and the world.

@GipsyOfNewSpain and anyone else interested in Irish song and music. One very early influence on my love of folk music were the Irish singers popular in my teens. They included the Dubliners, Tommy Makem and the Clancy Brothers, the Johnstons, the fabulous Fureys, and Paddy Reilly. Later came names like Christy Moore, Planxty, Andy Irvine ...
You will find samples of their work on YouTube and I leave you with Paddy Reilly singing a Bunch of Thyme. I love this video for the photos showing Paddy aging from yong to elderly man.

The final movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony or the Ode to Joy from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony move me like nothing else. I feel like am transcended to a place of movement and beauty that is just too hard to explain. But I can stand in the middle of a room and close my eyes and be taken away by the beauty and the power of the way that Beethoven brings so many elements together to form a song. It's powerful.