Dialect was an issue for me long before I began singing. As a teenager in St. Louis, MO, I was mortified when a girl in my class told me I had an accent. Actually I was born and raised in St. Louis, but I must have picked up an accent from my parents. My father and mother had both grown up on farms in Kentucky and the Arkansas Ozarks, respectively. I was aware that THEY had an accent -- two different accents, actually -- but I thought I didn't. My father also used odd dialect words like "chimley" for "chimney" and "holp" (pronounced "hope") for "helped," and so on. Sometimes I think I could write a book about my father's speech patterns.

I took it for granted that an accent was something to be ashamed of. Like most teenagers, I wanted nothing more than to be just like everybody else, so I immediately started trying to get rid of my accent. I think I succeeded. But accents are relative -- when I moved to Minnesota (as a college student), I discovered that St. Louisans have an accent. And if you believe "Fargo," you might even think that Minnesotans have an accent!

As an adult, I grew to have more respect for accents and dialect. As an amateur actor, I discovered that I have a knack for them. To do them well, you have to study them. There are books and tapes (probably CD's nowadays) made for the specific purpose of training actors how to do accents. You can also do your own research.

If (some) actors can do it well, there's no reason (some) singers couldn't do it equally well. Talent has something to do with it, but I think it's mainly a matter of how much effort you want to put into it.

Dialect/accent is practically mandatory for some songs. I can't imagine singing "Dahn the Plug'ole" (see DT) without a cockney accent.