Entertainment For Lively Minds
Singers who *really* can sing
Posted by Mark JF on 13 March 2009 - 1:53pm.
Inspired by Azeem's, "Singers who *really* can't sing" post I thought I'd ask the other question: so who do we think can sing? And inspired by Azeem's opening lines: I'm probably asking for trouble here, or at least inviting a rehearsal of the old "Bob Dylan can't sing" - "Yes he can" debate. But I'm not nominating Bob Dylan, although I can hear the howls of derision already as I propose...
Rod Stewart
Mick Hucknall
Don Henley
Anyone else?
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Suzy Bogguss
If I wasn't at work where YouTube access is blocked I'd find something of Suzy's to post.
I was aware of her for years through Bob Harris mainly, but had never really connected. However when Mrs P and myself saw her live with Gretchen Peters and Matraca Berg, we were totally sold. A fantastic set of pipes.
No
I think you've covered it.
;)
Oh c'mon
there must be a few more...
Oh, alright then
Singers wot I love:
Smokey Robinson
Ella Fitzgerald
Nina Persson
Karen Carpenter
Jessie Banks (Chungking)
David Crosby
John Grant (The Czars)
Guy Garvey
Jonte Short (Fried)
Kate Bush
Marvin Gaye
to name a few
David Ruffin
JFK Departures September '93. A suitcase, a broken heart - and this on the Walkman...
Singers who can sing
Tom Jones.
Robert Plant.
Al Green
Otis Reading
Teddy Pendergarss
Well
I would qualify by saying my list is people who also found their own voice...So...
Bobby Bland, James Carr, Classic Atlantic Aretha, Paul Buchanan,
Curtis Mayfield, Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash, Dinah Washington,John Martyn, Emmylou,Billie Holiday, Mark E. Smith (???),Elvis, Muddy, 60's Dylan (also "Rolling Thunder" singing with complete abandon and joy", Rod's solo and Faces, Stevie Marriot ok enough..next please!
David Bowie
See "Wild Is The Wind", as exhibit A.
Also anything off Young Americans, or Pin Ups, Or Scary Monsters, or...you get the picture.
Steve Winwood
An amazing voice. Sounded fantastic at the age of fifteen & still sounds great now. He's also an unbelievably good keyboard player & a bizarrely under-rated guitarist.
Sucking up to Kate Mossman
as I am, how about Glen Campbell?
Back in the day, yes
but he's gone rather wobbly as the years advance.
Judee Sill
Only got into her very recently, but boy can she sing. Really rate Neko Case as well
Sinead O'Connor
and Jackie Leven. If we're restricted to one of each sex.
Jimmy White
I only just discovered this fellow
Jimmy White
Did he sing on snooker loopy?
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Good typo!! I won't fix it
Now that
is class.
Beth Gibbons
My girlfriend cringes when I put Third on, I see this as a test of our relationship.
To be fair her whole family do, including the ex opera singer.
Its a conspiracy though, Beth can SING.
my ex...
a trained musician used to deliberately switch off her critical faculties to enjoy rock and pop music, and then turn them on again when needed. She said that otherwise she couldn't enjoy anything much on the radio.
Dare I say....
...Marti Pellow?
Hate his music and frankly, I reckon he's a right tube. However, I've often wondered what it'd be like if he used his voice for good instead of evil.
You may dare
Agreed. People forget that when they first appeared the Wets were quite credible. The EP they did with Willie Mitchell in Memphis had a cracking cover of James Taylor's Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight on it. Even their breakthrough album Popped In, Souled Out had pretty good reviews. I seem to remember the original version of Temptation had a sweary word in it ('won't break my fucking spirit'). I was a fan, if only because they were a rare proudly Rangers-supporting band in the otherwise uniformly 'left-footed' Scottish pop scene in the 80's.
On that point, some other excellent Caledonian 'chanters' of that era:
Pat Kane (some found/find his pretensions painful but there's no doubt he had some pipes)
Gary Clark of Danny Wilson
Paul Buchanan of the Blue Nile
Pellow
Smug git, horrid grin, but I once heard him sing a version of Joni Mitchell's 'River' (live on Jonathan Ross's radio show, I believe) that moved me to tears.
Disclaimer...
...I am not Marti Pellow. However, I can't agree that he is 'smug'. He's far too arrogant for that! As his hero Graeme Souness was once described 'if he was made of chocolate, he'd eat himself'.
Sandy Denny
No voice is purer, except perhaps Linda Thompson.
Also
Aimee Mann
Scott Walker
Engelburt Humperdinck (seriously)
Tom Jones
Maddy Prior
Kate Pierson from the B-52's
Elton when he's on form
Welsbey?
Welsbey?
Elton Welsby on form...
Aimee Mann
I love Aimee Mann, but I don't think she is a particularly good singer - too nasal and limited range. Certainly she can sing, but not like opera singers (I've heard that that Pavarotti bloke was quite good, in fact better than Bono).
kd lang
And James Dean Bradfield, although to these ears he has the opposite problem to most "bad" singers, (who can manage the ballads but come unstuck when a bit more power is needed), in that he can belt it out 'til the cows come home, but seems to struggle to rein it in on the softer numbers.
Michael Jackson, anyone?
When he's not giving it the daft attempts to be funky, the man has certainly got a voice.
Brenda Holloway
Gorgeous. Supported The Hey Jude Hitmakers at Shea Stadium. Fabulous voice. Triple whammy.
Packed it all in to marry a priest and be a housewife.
James Taylor Carly
James Taylor
Carly Simon
John K Samson (the weakerthans)
Jenny Lewis
Gary Louris
Jeff Tweedy
The Indigo Girls...
...The Everly Brothers, David Gilmour (though my wife insists he's a bit flat these days), Robert Plant (back in the day, anyway), Ian Matthews, Maria McKee, Alison Krauss & etc...
This could be a long list.
end of ...
Nat King Cole
Nick Drake
Guy Garvey
end of discussion
Grunge
Eddie Vedder and Chris Cornell.
Easy!
Bing sings, Walt disnae.
Jon Anderson squeeks.
Best UK male singer?
Toss up between Paul Rodgers and Frankie Miller.
Honourable mention to Roger Chapman (he told me to eff off in 1969, dontcha know), Ian Gillan and Pete Hammil.
May I reiterate (thanks to Tracking)
I stand by my choices of last April, yes we've done this before kind of. (Thanks Fraser for being able to "Track" my entry)
Paul McCartney (surprised he's not been mentioned already)
Jess Roden
Prince
John Martyn
Carl Wilson
Joni Mitchell
Gladys Knight
Sandy Denny
Cory Daye
Lynn Mabry/Dawn Silva (Brides Of Funkenstein - one of them's got a fantastic voice, not sure which)
Jess Roden
Whatever happened to Jess?
I saw him a couple of times in the 80's - I was at the Birmingham Town Hall gig which made up half the live album - and he was truly a great singer who received very limited recognition.
Another string to his bow.
I believe he's now working as a graphic artist in New York. Such a sad, sad waste (to us) but as long as he's happy... AFAIK only his first solo album is available on CD, it would be nice to have all four Jess Roden Band albums issued as well as the two post-JRB albums "The Player Not The Game" and "Stone Chaser"
Hucknall
Well done Mark JF for saying the unsayable but blindingly obvious - 'Mick Hucknall in 'can sing' shock!' See also 'Phil Collins not bad at the drums actually'.
I always find the superficiality of people's views of the likes of Hucknall depressing (he's got curly red hair you know!). Also the damning with faint praise / inverted racism of terms like 'blue eyed soul', as if, to name but two, Dusty Springfield and Van Morrison had never existed.
Phil Collins
a pretty good singer, too, IMHO.
Blue Eyed Soul?
In what way is this damning with faint praise? Over the years I've heard the term used to describe almost every white man with an understanding of soul - not least Van, Robert Palmer and Daryl Hall.
It was even used to describe The Dame during his Philly period
Patronising
I've always taken it to mean 'not bad for a white boy' which I think is patronising inverted snobbery, but maybe I've taken this too negatively.
Not at all...
Quite the reverse, in fact. It was used to denote white singers who had a decent soul voice.
John Martyn...
Having just spent the last week immersing myself in his music, I am reminded of the fact that he was a soul singer of singular talent. Listen to 'Some People Are Crazy' or 'Sweet Little Mystery' and marvel at the gift he was given.
Broad church
The overwhelming dominance of so called 'R&B' (in reality light years removed from its original, vital, incarnation) over the past few years has had a negative effect in my view. For example, to me, Paul Weller was infinitely more interesting, relevant and, paradoxically, soulful in the spiky Estuary tones of A Town Called Malice or That's Entertainment than in his recent 'really meaning it' phase, unfortunately summed up due to the wonder of YouTube in his unwanted karaoke session in a Prague bar.
To continue with this 'where did it all go wrong' theme, we have lost the shop-girl innocent charm of the Human League's Jo and Sue or Wham's Pepsi and Shirlie. In 2009, everything is perfectly coreographed, styled and 'soulful'. But is it better? I'm not convinced by my own argument, to be honest. Defenders of non-cheesy choreography and strong 'projection' wanted!
Laura Nyro
A soaring, pure, clear voice that pierces the soul. See "Save the Country" as evidence.
No mention yet of
Ol' Blue Eyes himself. Francis Albert Sinatra. Of whom Elton John said: "... simply the best - no one else even comes close." Amen.
Jesse Belvin...
Billy MacKenzie
Haven't seen Dundee's finest mentioned yet, so here he is...
Wot no Elvis?
Also John Lennon and the unfairly neglected (in the UK at least),Arthur Alexander.
Elvis is in post #5
.
The Big
O
A big
oh yes!
I am rather partial
To Nils Lofgren and Ron Sexsmiths voices. Also another shout for Sinead O'Connor who I think is vastly underrated. Mary Chapin Carpenter, Gretchen Peters and Candi Staton are all fine lady singers too.
Randy Crawford
Gwen Dickey
Agnetha and Frida
Julie Covington
Yvonne Elliman
I went to a corporate / industry association do
some years ago and after the "Shiniest Truck in the GB" and "Boss With the Smartest Suit" awards (I admit I had drunk a fair bit and wasn't paying much attention by that point in the evening) they introduced "the turn." It was Randy Crawford. Unfortunately, post-awards and end-of-dinner was most people's cue to clear off to the bar, so Randy came onstage to the sight of 90% of the UK haulage industry clearing off for even more drink. To her credit, she stayed onstage and put in a terrific show for the handful of stragglers who were either a) too p*ssed to move; b) too st*ffed to move; or c) genuinely gobsmacked that she was at a do like this and with her vocal prowess still clearly intact. I'd always admired her voice and had her in that, "Good voice, quite decent songs" neverland but that evening she went up several notches in my estimation. Great lady.
More
Emmylou Harris
Billy Joel
George Michael
Glen Campbell
Mama Cass
Al Green
Tony Bennett
Tracey Thorn
I'll see your Emmylou Harris
And raise you a Margo Timmins
Then there's
Peter Hammill
David Sylvian post-Japan
Jenny Lewis
the boy Cave
And I know he's probably in the other list as well, but I'm quite happy to listen to Captain Beefheart untl the cows come home. Although when cows hear him, they tend not to come home at all.
The Cool Ruler
Can't stand most of the overly-technical pop types, but Christina Aguilera can knock it out of the park on the right song.
Bobbie Gentry wasn't just technically perfect, but had an absolute mastery of phrasing and delivery (the YT clip of her doing Ode To Billie Joe on the Smothers Brothers show is like a 4 minute play).
Bettye LaVette has always been strangely underrated. Saw her at the Jazz Cafe last year, and even at nearly seventy she's phenomenal. Didn't even bother with a microphone for part of it.
Agreed that Hucknall would have been far more lauded if he'd applied his voice differently. And I know everyone hates Phil Collins, but the falsetto in 'In Too Deep' always gets me.
And, at the other end of the spectrum - Gregory Isaacs. A guy I know who did some work with him described him as 'feral', but you'd never know it from the way he sings. (The expanded reissue of Big Youth's 'Screaming Target' is worth it just for his version of 'Loving Pauper'.)
"everyone hates Phil Collins"
*everyone*?
Whilst I have little time for his later solo material, in the first few years of his tenure as Genesis front-man, he demonstrated a powerful, effective voice - check the Seconds Out live album (1977). I find myself listening to those late 70's albums as much as the Gabriel-era
...and of course, he's a staggeringly good drummer.
Phil Collins' first two solo records...
have their moments. He produced some sick bag worthy guff later on, but as you say, mid-70s Genesis was great.
I was watching one of the documentaries...
...on the new Genesis CD/DVD reissues and he agreed that, after the first couple of solo albums he lost his direction a little and was thrashing around looking for a 'style'
That young chap
Teddy Thompson´s a fine singer.
Greatest singer of all time: Tony Bennett or James Carr or Etta James or..
Ian McNabb
Great rich, low, powerful voice that really does get better with age. Some good songs too, but just doesn't get any airplay these days.
The Cool Ruler...again
Absolutely. Yip, the expanded Big Youth "Screaming Target" is a real corker (and track 11 with Augustus Pablo, oocha!) plus I'd heartily recommend Gregory's "Extra Classic" album reissued a few years ago as a thing of real beauty.
My other two are Burning Spear and Tim Buckley.
Tim Bowness
of No-Man. Stunningly good singer and a very good lyricist to boot.
The obvious and the not so obvious
Er, has anyone mentioned the Beach Boys yet? And CSNY? Clearly that is choral singing. Probably the Fleet Foxes as well. Have you tried singing something like "I just wasn't born for these times"? Not just singing along but trying to hit the right notes? Tricky.
Individually I would go for Marvin Gaye (hearing him sing the Lord's prayer acapella is heartbreaking), Joni Mitchell (those leaps seem effortless), John and Paul (particularly Paul), and the word's favourite Irishman Cathal Coughlan (now a bona fide operatic singer as well).
I'm a bit late.....
...but I thought I'd throw Richard Manuel into the mix.