Roy Orbison certainly ought to make the list...

Regarding the difference between falsetto and "head tone" or "head voice," I just dont' know how to evaluate that. I think they might be the same thing. But maybe different from counter-tenor? Escamillo and others, what say ye? I do know that when I learned to yodel, I had to learn to use my falsetto and I'm a soprano, so it's a different sounding tone from just plain vanilla soprano.

And Fionn, to my knowledge there weren't female soprani performing at the time of the castrati. That was the whole point of castrating the little dudes. Women couldn't perform publicly, or were severely limited in what they could do, and they most certainly couldn't sing sacred music. Sacrebleu! They were tainted by original sin, don'cha know, and not fit to participate in the official celebrations or ministrations of the Church. Thus, in service to that particular point of view, hundreds of little boys got mutilated, just as today, millions of women get themselves mutilated in service to the cultural notion that big breasts = better woman. Neither is particularly enlightened, but ... what fools we mortals be ...

ww