I keep reading this thread and I have a hard time getting a handle on it, but I think Jeri keyed me back in and I read Don's original post again. I don't really get the "perfect voice" idea unless I can relate it to particular genres or songs. I love to hear Mel Torme scattin, but I have a hard time getting a grip on him singing "Blue Moon of Kentucky." Course I can't get around Bill Monroe singing, "Shoobee, shoobee, doit, doit, du waa" either.

So........A voice without unnatural affectation or dialect that is perfect, pure if you like, for the music being performed? That being my criteria, I'd give anything to sing like Frank Proffit. I sing his songs, but I can't come close to that sound and don't even try. To do justice to his songs you at least have to sing them in your own truth, but that Southern Mountain sound is epitomized in Frank Proffit.

In that same way, I like John Hurt, Linda Williams, Jon Hartford, or George Jones for that matter. I mean really. Take some "My woman's gone, dog's dead, pickup's busted, and I'm sittin in the back of this honky tonk with a .357 about to blow my brains out" song and there ain't NOBODY can deliver that sucker like George. I don't like him, but that ain't the point.

Spaw