Many professional singers on the folk scene and elsewhere deliberately develop a singing style that is different to their normal spoken voice. Mostly these are people trying to establish their uniqueness in a competitive market. In some music genres this practice is essential and the norm.

As far as Shirley is concerned I've always found her spoken voice pretty much the same as her singing voice. I'm not sure what she would make of all this blather, but what I am sure of is, she has been appreciated by a great number of people over a very long period of time, and therefore this discussion is somewhat pointless. One or two people don't like her singing. So????