The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #120422 Message #2619043
Posted By: Azizi
26-Apr-09 - 12:19 PM
Thread Name: Signature Songs
Subject: Signature Songs
A longer name for this thread is "Signature Songs & Other Singers Who Sing Them".
I'm curious what song or songs you consider to be the signature song/s of a specific singer. I'm also curious if you like or preferanother vocalist's rendition of that song more than that singer who is most often associated with that song.
The idea for this thread came to me as a result of reading comments in this Mudcat thread about actors portraying certain Blues singers: Review: (NYT) Cadillac Records: blues movie.
A poster to that thread includes this quote from the New York Times article about that recent movie:
"Cadillac Records" would be worth seeing for the music alone. Mr. Wright's renditions of Muddy Waters's signature songs are more than respectable, while Ms. Knowles's interpretations of Ms. James's hits – "At Last" and "I'd Rather Go Blind," in particular – are downright revelatory."
-snip-
However there is considerable disagreement online and off-line about how well Beyonce sang "Etta James' songs". That disagreement became even more intense when Beyonce was invited to sing at President Obama's Youth Inaugural Ball and she sung Etta James' signature song "At Last".
http://www.usmagazine.com/news/etta-james-how-dare-beyonce-knowles-sing-at-last.
This thread is not necessarily about Beyonce or Etta James. However, this comment from an anonymous reader to the above linked article somewhat encapsulates one of the questions that I hope will be discussed in this thread:
"So no one can sing Beatles songs or Frank Sinatra songs or Michael Jackson songs except the original singer?"
-snip-
In other words, should singers sing another vocalist's [who is still alive] "signature song" at a prominent event even if that song wasn't penned by that particular vocalist?
I'm interested to know your thoughts about this question and I'm also interested in reading lists of signature songs for specific vocalists. Although Mudcat is a folk & blues forum, for the purpose of this thread, the songs and singers listed could be from any music genre.
Btw, I looked up this subject in Mudcat's search engine and found posts that included the phrase "signature song" but didn't find any threads dedicated to that subject.
Thanks in advance for your participation on this thread.