Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: Genie Date: 09 Dec 09 - 02:23 AM Elmore, I'd say Randy Newman is the epitome of what this thread is about. BRILLIANT musician, songwriter, humorist! Wonderful entertainer! But a "singer" he ain't. (And I doubt you'd get any argument from him. He doesn't need to be.) |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: Dave the Gnome Date: 07 Dec 09 - 08:48 AM No mention of Neil Diamond? His stuff may not be to everyones taste but a mighty fine voice and some material that could well be described as folky. (But let's not get into that:-) ) Another belter - Judith Durham, and seeing as her surname reminded me of a song, what about Roger Whittaker? DeG |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: Smedley Date: 07 Dec 09 - 08:43 AM If you want to hear Joni M singing clear as a bell, with melodies to die for and lyrics that are genuinely poetic, ignore Big Yellow T (juvenilia by her standards) and seek out 'Free Man In Paris', 'Edith and the Kingpin', 'Coyote' or 'In France They Kiss on Main Street'. And while you're at it, listen to some Laura Nyro too - though she doesn't belong in this thread at ALL. |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: GUEST,Elmore Date: 07 Dec 09 - 08:22 AM Randy Newman |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: GUEST,Seth from Olympia Date: 06 Dec 09 - 01:33 PM If I hear "river" by Joni at a certain time and when I'm in a particular frame of mind ( not too often) my eyes just water up > One of the stories that I read about her was that her first manager was blown away by how many songs she had that were written and ready to go at such a young age. I don't think " Big Yellow Taxi" her finest work, but if she wrote it when she was seventeen.... Don't I ( and you) wish we had one like that in the bin at such a young age. a lot of stuff on her early albums is hard to listen to now because I got old.... A singer who could sing was Nat Cole, with whatever he touched, jazz, blues, pop, Christmas, even gospel. seth |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: MGM·Lion Date: 06 Dec 09 - 06:10 AM Gee,Thanks, daddy-o - ;~)§ [This merely shameless ploy to publicise my new emoticon with my new beard!!!] |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: Little Hawk Date: 06 Dec 09 - 03:46 AM You are so right. ;-) |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: MGM·Lion Date: 06 Dec 09 - 03:25 AM "Singers" shd be capitalised too, if y're going 2B picky, Hawky. |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: Little Hawk Date: 06 Dec 09 - 03:17 AM Heh! top - a T-shirt or blouse, etc. great - large singers - sewing machines who - sound made by an owl can't - worthless propagandizing sing - a Chinese name (should be capitalized) Now, where were we? |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: MGM·Lion Date: 06 Dec 09 - 12:11 AM Definitions matter of course — so let's get back to basics on this thread:— Someone please define 'Top' Ditto 'Great' Ditto 'Singers' Ditto 'Can't' Dito 'Sing' I think we might all just agree as to meaning of number, 'ten' [tho nobody seems to be considering selves in any way confined by that figure], & of relative pronoun 'who' — but even there I am not too sure! |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: GUEST,specs7 Date: 05 Dec 09 - 11:58 PM I remember many years ago some critic saying about Johnny Cash that he sure made a lot of money for someone who sang like a bullfrog. |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity Date: 05 Dec 09 - 11:45 PM Little Hawk(yo-ho):"...I tend to sing sharp...if I sing unaccompanied by an instrument. I slowly go sharper and sharper...." Don't B flat, B sharp, but B natural! |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: Little Hawk Date: 05 Dec 09 - 11:30 PM Me too. |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: frogprince Date: 05 Dec 09 - 02:05 PM For my two cents worth, I think "The Circle Game" has it all: melody, imagery, universality. Love it. Dean |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: Little Hawk Date: 05 Dec 09 - 12:17 PM MtheGM - As Peter says, Joni Mitchell's early albums through to the album "Blue" were absolutely classic, and "Blue" is a masterpiece. She was also, as he says, a great innovator. In Joan Baez's case, well, she was just untouchable when she first appeared on the scene...she was the Queen...the Madonna...she was it. And everything (in female folksingers) that followed after for quite some time would be compared to Joan Baez. But she didn't write songs at all when she started out. She did write some poetry, but was under the impression she could not write songs. Bob Dylan advised her one day (over a coffee) that anyone could write songs. By the late 60s she was writing some songs. At first I would say they were...interesting...but a bit stilted. She hit her stride, however, in the mid-70s and began writing some very good material. The standout is the song "Diamonds and Rust", which I think is a masterpiece. Now, in Buffy's case...she did actually do some trad songs on her early albums, but for the most part she was writing her own songs about personal viewpoints and/or social issues, and they were very good. I think Buffy Sainte-Marie is one of the finest songwriters, composers, and performers that I have ever seen. As for Janis Joplin, I agree with Peter's remarks that she gave herself entirely over to the performance...yes...but I can barely stand to listen to how she sings, and I DO know someone who ruined her own voice and permanently damaged it by trying to sound just like Janis Joplin (God knows why anyone would do that...). One Joplin song I do thoroughly enjoy, though, is "Take a Piece of my Heart", backed by Big Brother and the Holding Company. That one was darned good. |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: GUEST,Molly Date: 05 Dec 09 - 11:03 AM Johnny Cash certainly but my alltime un-favourite is Roy flaming Orbison! Talk about wobble!!! But, as summed up beautifully in a previous comment technical ability is irrelevant if you can't "put a song across". |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: GUEST Date: 05 Dec 09 - 10:34 AM "I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Bryan Ferry and, of course Elvis Presley." Holy cow! How can you possibly say Elvis couldn't sing? What planet are you on? What made him so great was that he combined an extraordinarily beautiful, flexible and powerful voice with an unmatched ability to read a song and move the listener. |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: Peter T. Date: 05 Dec 09 - 08:02 AM Little Hawk said a few good things. The two finest things about Mitchell were (1) that she expressed in a powerful way a whole range of female emotion that essentially captured (and helped shape) a whole generation -- from her first album to "Blue" -- "Blue" is a masterpiece of mood and experience (I would say that it is not just my opinion) and after ("Hejira" is where I get to in this line -- "Amelia" is an astonishing poetic work); and (2) she is one of the great experimenters -- her open tunings and playing and jazz -- not all of which I go for -- are so far beyond what other singer-songwriters do that she is in a category by herself. And she started out, really, when there was nothing like it in women in popular music. (Now Jonis are everywhere). I don't really understand the diction issue. Vowels, consonants, all there in the right order. She sings clearly enough for me. yours, Peter T. |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: MGM·Lion Date: 05 Dec 09 - 12:15 AM Fair enough, Little Hawk. Thank you for your thoughtful analysis. I still can't, however, rate her diction highly; which matters a great deal, particularly in singing songs of 'significant' content. Nor do I agree about the tune of BYT, which I find uninspired and uninspiring. I think Baez who, tho she sang other 'contemp' writers' work, didn't, I believe, write much of her own material, and started out, unlike Mitchell & Ste-Marie, as traditional, is not in quite the same category - would you agree? |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: Little Hawk Date: 05 Dec 09 - 12:06 AM MtheGM - Well, I was never much impressed by that song Joni Mitchell did about the parking lot either...although it's got a catchy and enjoyable tune. It's a very lighthearted song, seems to me, nothing that ever pretended to be very deep. I think she was mainly just having fun with the vocals on that one. However, if you look through the whole catalog of all the work she's done, aside from the odd radio hit she's had here and there, it's quite remarkable in both its musicality, its variety, its intelligence, and its lyrical content. She's one hell of a fine musician, and an extremely capable singer too, plus a great songwriter. I think most in the folk field would agree with me on that. She's also very unique. No one else sounds like Joni Mitchell, but I know more than a few female singers who have tried to. I personally never liked her material as much as I did that of Buffy Sainte-Marie and Joan Baez, but that's just my personal taste. It's not my evaluation of Joni's talents and abilities. I have a thing for intense female singers with dark hair who sing about social causes...and Joan and Buffy were of that type. Joni Mitchell was a different type. She's more eclectic or something...very artsy...off on her own creative trip...sort of like a latter day jazz beatnik combination. She looks like she should be wearing a black beret and painting impressionist oils between gigs. (and she does paint) ;-) That style of hers didn't interest me as much as Baez and Buffy's did, but I sure respect her musical ability. |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: GUEST,seth in Olympia Date: 04 Dec 09 - 11:15 PM Most of the non-singin' artists here mentioned are much loved by me, and have been for a long time. What grates on my ears are the singers with huge voices whose singing is terrible, particularly evident in any mall, drugstore, supermarket in the U.S. at this time of year. Frank, Bing, Johnny M. had the chops and the even the artistic sensibility to do anything they wanted, why they would whore themselves out to do awful Christmas songs is beyond me. I've found that not so many agree with me on this, I guess hearing Bing bleat out "Let it Snow" one more time is essential to the warp and weft of the Christmas season for a lot of folks. However, if once, while walking through the local Safeway, I heard "Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis", that would make my afternoon for sure. seth |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: MGM·Lion Date: 04 Dec 09 - 10:18 PM I mean, I know comparisons are odious & all that: but J Mitchell seems to me to be up there in public regard with the likes of the really important singer-songwriters [Paxton, Bogle, et al]: & I really cannot see why. Their messages, re personal relationships & FX of war respectively, genuinely make a contribution to important public attitudes. What was Joni's contribution? |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: MGM·Lion Date: 04 Dec 09 - 09:30 PM PeterT & LittleHawk: could you please tell me what you so admire about Joni Mitchell which will contradict what I wrote above? I am not meaning to be contentious here, just genuinely curious to know what I am missing. I mean, the 'tree museum - dollar & a half' bit amuses, sure; but the actual dystopic sentiments of BYT [which I think will be accepted as one of her 'signature' compositions] are surely quite banal & oft-expressed; & the tune is nothing-xtra, is it? |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego Date: 04 Dec 09 - 05:49 PM Reading all (or mostly all) of this, I go back to a basic truth. We sometimes accuse people of not being able to sing because the vocal quality doesn't agree; i.e., it's rough or sandpapery, reedy or nasal or like gargling marbles (Waits). But, what you find is that nearly all who have become famous, whether you like them or not, do have basic musicality and can carry a tune. Go back as far as Louis Armstrong or Jack Teagarden; even Jimmy Durante. None were noted for clarity or beautiful tone, but all could carry a song with great feeling and style. People loved their singing. Rod Stewart and Dylan have both been excoriated for their vocalizing by some. Maybe it's an acquired taste, but SOMETHING made them hugely popular. |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: Little Hawk Date: 04 Dec 09 - 03:56 PM I tend to sing sharp...if I sing unaccompanied by an instrument. I slowly go sharper and sharper. Boy, is it ever annoying. I think it's an after-effect of my years in school choruses. Almost everyone else tended to sing flat...so I kept singing sharp to try and pull them up. It became an unconscious reflex after that. |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: Little Hawk Date: 04 Dec 09 - 03:53 PM LOL! I tend to agree, Peter. However, you also said: "Janis Joplin was one of the great singers of the last 50 years. She was like Garland or Pavarotti or Edith Piaf -- when she sang it was with her entire being, and after she was done there was nothing left. If you don't understand that, there is really no help for you." Fine, Peter. Fine. I am going to go out right now into the backyard and blow my worthless brains out with this little peashooter I have here. ;-) I hope you will be wracked with guilt over what you have done this day... |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: Peter T. Date: 04 Dec 09 - 03:40 PM You know, there are few finer things in life than getting the opportunity to tell someone that if they don't get Janis Joplin, they need to rethink. One of those finer things is to tell someone who thinks that Joni Mitchell is overrated that they themselves are overrated as human beings, and should perhaps turn in their "Human Here" badge. yours, Peter T. |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: GUEST Date: 04 Dec 09 - 05:56 AM Here's a sweeping generalisation regarding male singers but I think there is some of truth in it. Folk singers tend to sing slightly flat (Leonard Cohen, Dubliners) and country singers slightly sharp (George Jones, Dwight Yoakam). OK, I can think of one exception straight away. Johnny Cash. Maybe that's why he has more "street cred" among folkies (in the UK anyway). Feel free to tear my hypothesis to shreds (as if you needed an invitation). |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: Dick The Box Date: 04 Dec 09 - 03:11 AM My sewing machine is a great singer but it can't sing....... |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: MGM·Lion Date: 04 Dec 09 - 01:21 AM Am I alone in having always found Joni Mitchell much overrated? — diction dodgy so that one longed for subtitles or a cribsheet of the words [interesting that the BigYellowTaxi version I have just played on YouTube, to check I wasn't being unfair posting this, has the words printed alongside]; sentiments not all that original or profound; tunes not particularly interesting or catchy. I have long felt she was one of those most fortunate in having made the impact which she did. |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: GUEST,Sheridan Date: 03 Dec 09 - 10:32 PM If you believe the entries in this thread, apparently nobody can sing. |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: Peter T. Date: 03 Dec 09 - 08:34 PM Janis Joplin was one of the great singers of the last 50 years. She was like Garland or Pavarotti or Edith Piaf -- when she sang it was with her entire being, and after she was done there was nothing left. If you don't understand that, there is really no help for you. yours, Peter T. |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: Tattie Bogle Date: 03 Dec 09 - 07:45 PM A bit unkind this thread, or what? So I won't name any names, tho' I can think of a few whose songs are spell-binding, great lyrics, even if they haven't got the greatest voices. But I saw one last week, who writes great songs, sings in tune BUT has a horrible rasp in his voice that turns me right off: makes me want to clear his throat for him or tell him that as he's using a mike, he doesn't have to shout down it. And just another (sexist?) observation: it's easier for men with not very good voices to get away with it than it is for women (being one myself)! |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: Joe Nicholson Date: 03 Dec 09 - 07:36 PM They used to call Bing Crosby The Old Groaner he could groan for me anytime Joe Nicholson |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: GUEST,Neil D Date: 02 Dec 09 - 08:56 PM Mick Jagger John Fogerty |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: GUEST Date: 01 Dec 09 - 10:57 PM Shiz - this is easy. Ray Charles Aretha Franklin Frank Sinatra Tony Bennett Ed Trickett Carmen McRae Ella Fitzgerald Richard Hidalgo Roy Orbison Tony Williams of the Platters Lyle Lovett Teddy Thompson Bob Shane Joan Baez Waylon Jennings Marty Robbins Emmy Lou Harris Patty Lovelace Herb Pedersen Gordon Lightfoot |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: Dave Roberts Date: 01 Dec 09 - 06:28 PM Bobert, Sure did! |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: Bobert Date: 01 Dec 09 - 06:13 PM Correction: "Greetings from Asbury Park"... As fir Elvis??? Hey, look... Tyhis ain't no opera website, is it??? He sang great!!! B~ |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: Dave Roberts Date: 01 Dec 09 - 05:53 PM Tim, Quite. To put Elvis in a list of people who 'can't sing' is patently absurd. |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: RTim Date: 01 Dec 09 - 04:41 PM Someone says: "Elvis used vibrato to disguise the fact that he couldn't hold a note." That is WHY you use Vibrato! Tim Radford |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: Bobert Date: 01 Dec 09 - 04:29 PM LH & GfS, When I booked Steelmill back in '69 and '70 in Richmond, Springsteen was the lead singer... But he also did, ahhhh, some fine folk music which was acoustic and very pretty stuff... It's a voice that most folks who think they know what Springsteen sounds like would never imagine... If you get out the "Welcome to Asbury Park" LP and listen to "Mary, Queen of Arkansas" you'll hear Springsteen as close to pure as anything that he has recorded... But lotta folks, myself included, got to hear several "coffeehouse style" pefrormances by Bruce back then and the boy can flat out carry a tune... B~ |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: Dave Roberts Date: 01 Dec 09 - 01:47 PM I think Elvis Presley was great. |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego Date: 01 Dec 09 - 01:37 PM Joe Valachi - he sang like a canary, but couldn't carry a tune in a lunchpail. Poor Tom Waits, trying still to sing after having his vocal cords surgically mutilated - and laughing all the way to the bank, I'm sure. |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: Mavis Enderby Date: 01 Dec 09 - 02:41 AM If only Florence Foster Jenkins could have been accompanied by Les Dawson Pete |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: Helen Jocys Date: 01 Dec 09 - 02:26 AM Sorry Bernard. Missed your entry Must have been asleep! |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: Little Hawk Date: 01 Dec 09 - 02:10 AM Hey, GfS...there is a well-known music teacher and band conductor in Orillia, Ted Duff, who also works with a 4-person jazz vocal group called "Jazzamatazz". It happened one year that Jazzmatazz had lost their tenor, and they were taking auditions. I wanted to see if I could try out something really different for a change, so I auditioned...and I passed! So I got to sing the tenor part in Jazzmatazz for about a year. After I passed the audition, Ted said to me, "I thought that none of you folksingers could actually sing! I'm pleasantly surprised to find out that there is one who can." That made me feel pretty good, but I have to say that I think Ted is unreasonably prejudiced against folk and rock music in a general sense... ;-) There are lots of folksingers who can really sing. I did shows with Jazzmatazz for about a year, then I decided to move on, because although it was darned good music, I could never really get that interested in it. I respect it, mind you...it just isn't the kind of music I have much of a yen for normally, so after a year my curiosity about it was fully satisfied, and I quit the group (on good terms, I might add). Ted Duff was great to work with. He is one hell of a fine musician, and he loves the music...if it's jazz or show tunes, that is. He has brought a lot of fine music to Orillia. |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: GUEST,Ralphie Date: 01 Dec 09 - 01:05 AM Talking of "Off Key" singing. Alongside the redoubtable FF Jenkins, you could line up Mrs Miller (Who's eponymous 2nd LP "Will success spoil Mrs Miller?" rarely leaves my turntable.) Travelling into Europe, who could ever forget MA Numminem, whose rock opera on the subject of the philosopher Wittgenstein, "The Tractatus Suite" is a joy and a wonder. We could always add at this juncture, those 2 celebrated doyens of Mudcat threads over the years, William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. And Jo Staffords benighted alter ego. Darlene Edwards! Linda McCartney anyone? Seriously. I think the original post was basically correct. The likes of Dylan, Waits etc. all have something to say. A case of the message not the messenger. But it's a fun thread nonetheless. And the thought of Ian Dury as a computer software expert in Milton Keynes cracks me up!! Nowadays I just wish I was the MD of Antares corp. (For those who don't know..It's a digital pitch shifter!) He must be making a fortune!! |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity Date: 01 Dec 09 - 12:58 AM L.H.(yo-ho): "...I can understand the criticism of his technique that was offered here...however, I'd say that it works well for him. And he puts on a terrific show." Went to one in the eighties. Tremendous energy! I was mostly speaking on his technical abilities. Yes, what he does, certainly works for him.......not that I'd go again... A very well known vocal coach, who is also a basso baritone, and performs opera, and revered internationally for his work, had a great phrase to describe the music of the sixties, which also fits Bruce's voice....."...When Mediocrity was chic " GfS |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: GUEST,M.Ted Date: 01 Dec 09 - 12:37 AM Florence Foster Jenkins had an amazing sense about where to be "off". Bad singers don't usually understand the music that well. |
Subject: RE: Ten Top Great Singers Who Can't Sing From: robomatic Date: 30 Nov 09 - 09:49 PM those girl singers of whom christina aguelera is a shining example, unable to hold a note so they 'average' over and call it a tremolo "hey it's not a bug, it's a feature!" with no interior talent they have to have an album cover to expose their exterior attributes, the aforesaid aguelera once posing in shaded leather lace-up pants that left nothing to the imagination. I have one other pet hate, a folksy old fogey who tries to sound late nineteenth century, a crooner before amplification. I will frnakly say I hate him so much I am incapable of judging his quality. I hate him so much I can't remember his name, but the crackling twanginess of his delivery has my dorsals in tension just writing this. must.....control......keyboard...of...flame oh, yeah. . . Leon Redbone |
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