My first meeting with a giant in the field of singer-songwriting wasn’t in an LA canyon, but somewhere on a hill outside San Francisco. Tasked 25 years ago with interviewing Neil Young for NME, myself and a photographer took a long taxi ride outside the city and up to what was then apparently one of Neil’s incognito hangs – a homey restaurant within a wooded area called the Mountain House. As we pulled up and stepped out of the taxi in our unCalifornian black clothing, we were greeted by a genial voice: “Great,” it announced, wryly. “The English are here!”

This, of course, was Elliott Roberts, then 30 years into a role which he occupied for over half a century, quietly influencing the careers of the most single-minded and ungovernable artists in music history: Neil Young of course, but also Crosby, Stills and Nash, and our cover star, Joni Mitchell. These artists, their contemporaries, kindred spirits and fellow travellers like James Taylor, Carole King, Judee Sill and Jackson Browne are at the heart of this publication.

They are also what we think of when we talk about the art of the singer-songwriter: the song as an investigation of the self, a discovery of emotional truths. Geographically and metaphorically it was an escape from the crowd: the old bands, and the old ways of doing things. As much as it was about the individual writer, it was also about a wider empathy: a tuneful and engrossing pursuit which won its musicians millions of fans all over the world.