Actually, Janis's singing "technique" (blowing your vocal chords all to hell) worked well for her. I just wouldn't want to sing that way myself, that's all. It feels painful even thinking about it. I doubt she could have kept it up much longer without doing permanent damage to her voice, had she stayed alive longer in the first place.

I used to focus on Dylan so much that I sounded a LOT like him (although he has a higher top end...the son of a gun could reach an A-flat on the top guitar string until maybe the early 90's, when he started losing the top end of his range). As time went by I retained some Dylan inflections here and there, but more and more found my own voice, which was definitely the way to go.

- LH