Great songwriters

I marveled at the audacity and absurdity of Robert Hilburn’s assertion that Bob Dylan is “the most important songwriter of the 20th century” [“Young Dylan, the Man of Ideas,” Nov. 15]. Of the last half of the 20th century, maybe.

Surely, most people wouldn’t rate him as a songwriter in the same league with Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Johnny Mercer, Harold Arlen or Duke Ellington, to name a few from the “golden age” of American popular song. Then again, ever hear of Hank Williams?

LEN GARDNER

Laguna Woods