Best Singing Accent!!!

Subject: BS: Best Singing Accent!!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Dec 03 - 05:12 PM

Nominations:

Bob Dylan...being really waspish, sarcastic and ultra-cool...as in "Like A Rolling Stone" or "Positively Fourth Street".

Julio Iglesias...being simultaneously passionate, tender, wistful, and Latin...as in "To All The Girls.." or "Too Many Women"

Willie Nelson...just being his dear old nasal self.

Elvis...belting out "I'm All Shook Up!" (Uhhh!)

These are hard to beat in my opinion, and all of them absolutely classic.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Best Singing Accent!!!
From: Joybell
Date: 24 Dec 03 - 05:23 PM

I'm with you Little Hawk. Absolutely. Dylan at the top of the male singers.
I'd add Dolly Parton, Jean Richie, Jean Redpath, Linda Ronstadt - all singers who use their own accents.
Also all of the singers on the old field recordings who sang with their own accents.

Subject: RE: BS: Best Singing Accent!!!
From: Padre
Date: 24 Dec 03 - 05:29 PM

Any good Welsh male choir!!

Padre

Subject: RE: BS: Best Singing Accent!!!
From: pdq
Date: 24 Dec 03 - 05:42 PM

Nanci Griffith...makes me wish I lived in Texas.

Subject: RE: BS: Best Singing Accent!!!
From: harvey andrews
Date: 24 Dec 03 - 07:48 PM

Anything but mid-Atlantic! Oh, and that strange cod English voice that some trad singers use. Try speaking in it and it comes out as some form of whining Cockney and we have enough of that on the soaps.

Subject: RE: Best Singing Accent!!!
From: Joe Offer
Date: 24 Dec 03 - 08:05 PM

Well, I like Irish Dement.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Best Singing Accent!!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Dec 03 - 10:49 PM

For an unusual and memorable singing accent, check out Lene Lovich on the album "Flex", doing her Russian femme fatale routine. Pretty neat. She didn't sound at all like that when speaking.

Subject: RE: Best Singing Accent!!!
From: Sorcha
Date: 24 Dec 03 - 10:56 PM

Mary Black

Subject: RE: Best Singing Accent!!!
From: DonMeixner
Date: 25 Dec 03 - 03:16 AM

I'm with pdq and Joe Offer regards Naci Griffith and Iris Dement. But those are their voices. I always felt that a singing accent is and affectation, not real. And those I don't like.

Don

Subject: RE: Best Singing Accent!!!
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 25 Dec 03 - 03:17 AM

I've just heard Steve Earle and I'm entranced. Didn't realise before that the word "up" had two syllables.

Subject: RE: Best Singing Accent!!!
From: DonMeixner
Date: 25 Dec 03 - 03:20 AM

Aye uh! It do.

Subject: RE: Best Singing Accent!!!
From: breezy
Date: 25 Dec 03 - 02:24 PM

greek accent singing songs in english

a cockney accent

sing in your own accent

unless your taking the p...

Subject: RE: Best Singing Accent!!!
From: radriano
Date: 26 Dec 03 - 10:59 AM

For me, Bob Dylan's singing accent is the worst I've ever heard. A gimmick that caught on, that's all it is.

Subject: RE: Best Singing Accent!!!
From: GUEST,Gene Burton
Date: 26 Dec 03 - 12:21 PM

Johnny Cash and Sandy Denny.

Subject: RE: Best Singing Accent!!!
From: Walking Eagle
Date: 26 Dec 03 - 01:42 PM

Lucinda Williams and Frank Sinatra. I second Jean Redpath, especially when she sings all of the verses to the song. I'd like to add Hazel Dickens and Jean Ritchie.

Subject: RE: Best Singing Accent!!!
From: GUEST,Paddy
Date: 26 Dec 03 - 01:48 PM

Ewan McColl's phoney Scottish one!

Subject: RE: Best Singing Accent!!!
From: fat B****rd
Date: 26 Dec 03 - 01:53 PM

I was once told off by a guitarist for singing in a "pseudo black style" whilst it was okay for him and about 85% of English folkies to bellow forth as if they had worked on the land/been fishermen/fought in the Napeoleonic wars etc, and been anything but bank clerks/solicitors/teachers etc.
Was it because of the colour thing or am I wrong in thinking that if it sounds alright to me then it's alright.

Subject: RE: Best Singing Accent!!!
From: PoppaGator
Date: 26 Dec 03 - 03:18 PM

I think certain genres of song demand that the singer adopt a bit of an "accent," if only to conveny the proper vocal sound. When said accent is not native to the singer, there's a pretty fine line between the desired subtle authenticity and an embarrassingly bad burlesque.

I have long been amazed at how good a job of blues singing the young Englishmen of the blues rivival have done. Most of 'em, dating back to John Mayall, have consitently sounded appropriately "bluesy," without falling into the trap of Amos-&-Andy preudo-negritude, while creating voices for themselves that are nothing at all like their normal speaking voices. Insofar as their voices are "artificial," for the best of these singers, their self-made voices and personnas are themselves well-realized works of art. I suppose the same could be said, potentially at least, of Americans or Englishmen singing Scots or Celtic repertoires, etc.

Interesting to see the criticism of Reba McD, who is after all an authentically Southern gal. In her case, the "accent" is pretty much her own, but perhaps she exaggerates it for whatever reason, and winds up sounding more-or-less fake.

Gotta agree with Walking Eagle about Lucinda Williams. In her case, the singing voice *is* exactly the same as the everyday speaking voice, even though it's not so much an authentic accent ideintified with one or another locale, but rather an amalgam of many Southern and rural American speech patterns, assembled (consciously, at least in part, I'd be willing to guess) throughout a lifetime of moving from one place to another. She's a singer whose vowel and consonant sounds can be just as delicious as the notes and rhythms she puts forth for us.

Subject: RE: Best Singing Accent!!!
From: freda underhill
Date: 26 Dec 03 - 05:32 PM

Dick Gaughan... John Dengate

Subject: RE: Best Singing Accent!!!
From: Joybell
Date: 26 Dec 03 - 06:52 PM

PoppaGator, I keep getting this thread and the one about the worst singing accent mixed up too. I'm not tired today but I am a day older. Must be that. Joy

Subject: RE: Best Singing Accent!!!
From: Joybell
Date: 26 Dec 03 - 06:57 PM

And the two threads are running neck and neck. Which one will win? This is so exciting.

Subject: RE: Best Singing Accent!!!
From: Cluin
Date: 26 Dec 03 - 07:06 PM

Marlene Dietrich.

Subject: RE: Best Singing Accent!!!
From: Melani
Date: 27 Dec 03 - 03:23 PM

Hank Cramer

Subject: RE: Best Singing Accent!!!
From: Walking Eagle
Date: 27 Dec 03 - 08:57 PM

BTW, do y'all know that Tony Joe White ( Polk Salad Annie, Rainy Night in Georgia ) IS white? He talks exactly as he sings. Tina Turner asked for him to come back stage one night and she laughed long and hard when she discovered he was not African/American. Talk about a white blues singer!

I guess I'd like to add Tony Joe to my list.

W.E.

Subject: RE: Best Singing Accent!!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Dec 03 - 10:40 PM

Yikes! I forgot all about Marlene Dietrich, and she was sensational!

Another woman with a spectacularly unique style of delivery was Eartha Kitt, and of course there was the legendary Edith Piaf as well.

- LH

Subject: RE: Best Singing Accent!!!
From: Sam L
Date: 28 Dec 03 - 02:18 PM

Accent seems to shade off into personal speech patterns. I'm not sure Dylan sings in any identifiable regional accent, but I like the way he sings. I used to suppose Natalie Merchant was from Argentina or somewhere because of the odd thick sound in her pronounciation. Paul McCartney is a great mimic.
   Always liked how Johnny Cash sounds like he's about to break into song.
   I'm liking Lucinda William's singing a little less on recent music.

   I'm not a big fan, but kind of like how Lou Reed's voices keeps looking for the note after he's passed over it, like someone trying to find the car keys they're holding in their hand.
   
   I like the Wattersons' voices in harmonies, but none especially more than any other solo.

Subject: RE: Best Singing Accent!!!
From: PoppaGator
Date: 29 Dec 03 - 10:30 AM

Fred, I know exactly what you're talking about in regard to Lou Reed -- you did as good a job as I've every seen, trying to describe that rather elusive quality. I generally admire Lou as a singwriter, and enjoy (more than admire) his performances.

But he always leaves me with the frustrated feeling that "I could sing that tune so much better," which is not really the desired effect of any performance. I feel less ill-at-ease when listening to a stronger and more cnfident singer. But I suppose Lou's unabashed delivery and his wilingness to sound so terribly vulnerable is part of his appeal.

Subject: RE: Best Singing Accent!!!
From: VIN
Date: 29 Dec 03 - 11:06 AM

I sought of like the north east (of england) accent as demonstrated by Vin Garbutt or Bob Fox. Also some scots e.g Dick Gaughan, the Campbelss, not forgettin of course the 'owdum tinkers'!

Subject: RE: Best Singing Accent!!!
From: GUEST,Saff
Date: 29 Dec 03 - 12:01 PM

Trademark singing accent/Jezz Lowe

Subject: RE: Best Singing Accent!!!
From: Dani
Date: 29 Dec 03 - 02:22 PM

Kendall Morse.

Dani

Subject: RE: Best Singing Accent!!!
From: GUEST,Paul Burke
Date: 30 Dec 03 - 03:57 AM

No one mentioned Margaret Barry yet? Her version of 'My Lagan Love' would take the paint off a door, and as for the three lovely lasses in Lannion....

Then of course Jeannie Roberts.