singers: who do you emulate and why?

Subject: RE: singers: who do you emulate and why?
From: Vixen
Date: 02 Aug 04 - 10:29 AM

Interesting thread--

I agree with Jerry; everyone who does anything has to admit to some sort of "influence"...

Diction is a curious thing--I certainly don't want to "mumble" my songs, a la Natalie Merchant (though I like her voice and how she uses it).

When I was younger I wanted to sound like the young Joan Baez, Mary Travers, Carol King and Joni Mitchell.

Now I want to sound like me, but I don't really know what I sound like. What I hear in my head is certainly different from what I hear I press "play"! And with a bit of "tweaking" during the recording process, Tim can do things that make me sound like Enya.

I've only recently (in the last few years) learned that it's ok to sing in my chest voice, that it's ok to have notes that "break", that volume and projection come from my being relaxed and solidly full of air in the middle of my body, that curling around my guitar kills my voice, that practicing scales and exercises makes notes and intervals easier to produce and hold onto.

So now I want to add ornaments, and emotion, and dynamic range and other interesting things to my singing, and I'm listening to Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton and others so I can hear how they add ornaments, convey emotion, and use dynamics to be such effective singers.

For me, every aspect of music is a learning process, and I'm one of those people who has to learn from others. I figure I'm learning what the tools are and how to use them--as I get more adept, hopefully I'll be able to use them creatively for my own purposes.

Just my $0.02, fwiw.

V

Subject: RE: singers: who do you emulate and why?
From: GUEST,Larry K
Date: 02 Aug 04 - 10:54 AM

The singer I admire most is Martin Sexton.   Incredible range and various styles of delivery.

For me I just worry about hitting the right notes.   That is more than enough challenge.

I agree with everyone else.   Just be yourself and sound like who you are.   Check out the Joel Mabus song about that topic. I think it is called "Nobody sings my songs like me"

Subject: RE: singers: who do you emulate and why?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 02 Aug 04 - 10:59 AM

As a late teenager I discovered Burl Ives and his choice/style of folk songs.

Later, about 1950, I stumbled across Pete Seeger, and in the mid-50s Richard Dyer-Bennet.

Each of these three blew me away in his own time. Later, I came to see Burl Ives as maybe a little too simple. I knew I never could play banjo (or guitar, for that matter) like Pete Seeger. I was absolutely certain that I didn't have the vocal technique or the voice to sing like Richard Dyer-Bennet, let alone the classically oriented guitar technique.

What's more, I can't be Pete Seeger because I am not Pete Seeger, I'm Dave Oesterreich, for good or ill. Same thing with Burl Ives and Richard Dyer-Bennet. Better a first-rate Dave Oesterreich than a second-rate Ives, Seeger, or Dyer-Bennet.

Yet these three singers became the constellation of stars by which I steered my singing aspirations: Straightforward story telling, with all words clear, and of course (hopefully) nice voice quality, rhythm, and pitch placement. I sort of wanted to place (mixing a metaphor here) the arrow of my singing style somewhere in the triangle formed by those three.

I don't want to claim that I've achieved the excellence of any one of them (because I know I haven't, and never will), but I think my style and presentation has come somewhere near that target area, and that's A-OK with me.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: singers: who do you emulate and why?
From: Joybell
Date: 02 Aug 04 - 08:36 PM

Uncle DaveO you are a perfect example of how I think songs should be sung. When I play your CD it's the songs I hear and a singer who presents them as he feels the SONGS. I can admire a lovely voice and a clever presentation but for me it's the song not the singer that counts.
I have to disagree that we all start out with some sort of style based on other singers. I have sung as long as I've talked. Until I went to school I assumed that everyone did. I first picked up songs from my parents and from sing-a-long sessions at local community halls. (No "style" there I can tell you!) I started out hearing songs as stories to be told in song. My parents sang songs in a very straight-forward way and that's how I still like to sing. There are singers who move me, of course, but it's the ones who sing in the way that is natural - FOR THEM, who let the songs work their magic. Joy

Subject: RE: singers: who do you emulate and why?
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Aug 04 - 09:02 PM

I try to emulate the Irish trad singers I enjoy the most, i.e. Mary Dillon of Deanta, Cathy Jordan of Dervish, Karen Casey, etc. The main reason I emulate them is to learn the ornamentation that "makes" the Irish trad sound...if I can come close to sounding like them, then I consider it a job well done.

When I listen to recordings of me singing songs I learned from them, it's obviously not a duplication. It's a work in progress, of which I'm very proud. I'm very sure there will always be enough of "me" left in there to show through.

Subject: RE: singers: who do you emulate and why?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 Aug 04 - 08:47 PM

Well, my first three favorite singers were Dylan, Baez, and Buffy Sainte-Marie. I emulated all of them in various ways, and that makes an interesting combination since they are all quite different from one another. I was also well impressed with Ian Tyson's singing and Jackson Browne's. Then there was Al Stewart. All of those people influenced me, but I developed my own sound along the way. When I sing Dylan's stuff I sometimes sound a lot like him (and sometimes not). Depends if I want to at the time.

Subject: RE: singers: who do you emulate and why?
From: biglappy
Date: 04 Aug 04 - 02:26 AM

I went to high school with James Taylor. I always thought he was a mighty fine singer.

I listen to Doc Watson and John Hurt the most.

Subject: RE: singers: who do you emulate and why?
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler
Date: 04 Aug 04 - 04:03 AM

I'd like to think I sing like Fred McDowell,Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee and Howling Wolf.
Instead I sound like Robbie Mcdowell, Ellen Terry, Henry McGhee and Virginia Woolf (sorry should have blown the dust off that old joke)
Sort of Lonnie Donegan meets Louis Armstrong really with more than a touch of "Jonathan & Darlene Edwards".

RtS

Subject: RE: singers: who do you emulate and why?
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 04 Aug 04 - 09:23 AM

Note to self: "Did you mean Roddy McDowell? Or perhaps Andi?"
Reply from alter ego: "Nobody likes a smartarse, Roger".

Rts
(preview, Roger, preview)

Subject: RE: singers: who do you emulate and why?
From: GUEST,larry
Date: 07 Aug 04 - 06:00 PM

I think I sound more like a cross of Barry McGuire and Lead Belly.


My 12-string completes the equation.

Subject: RE: singers: who do you emulate and why?
From: fat B****rd
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 02:15 PM

Ray Charles, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Howlin Wolf etc. That's in my imagination. In real life, probably a fat 57 year old from Cleethorpes.

Subject: RE: singers: who do you emulate and why?
From: maple_leaf_boy
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 11:15 PM

I CAN emulate other artists who I like. I choose not to do this, though,
because I prefer to sing in my own voice.
In fact, I've seen ads on another site, where some guy asks, "Do I
sound like these people?" Then, he has samples of him trying to
emulate very famous artists. He thinks that you have to be able to emulate these standard artists to make a career in the music industry.
(Well, they'd like to be able to hear "you" in the studio, and not
"someone else.")
It's much different than "who we'd like to emulate, for the joy of it,
and because we admire their singing which is why I do it, and I'm sure all of you do it for the same reason."

Subject: RE: singers: who do you emulate and why?
From: GUEST,Charles J. Fish
Date: 22 Nov 08 - 11:10 PM

I've always tried to pull off that jumpy half-chuckle A.L. Lloyd had in his voice, meeting rather less success than the piratic career of Captain Kidd (although it's not like I can sing anyway). It might seem like an odd choice, but I warmed to his singing the first time I heard it -- it's rough and natural and you can hear how much joy he took in the music.

Subject: RE: singers: who do you emulate and why?
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 22 Nov 08 - 11:18 PM

As for me: Popeye the Sailorman. With a dash of Long John Silver.

Subject: RE: singers: who do you emulate and why?
From: GUEST,wayfarer
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 11:43 PM

I think it comes down to a matter of balance between emotion and technique. People talk about a singer like George Jones having a four octave range but when you listen to him, and tune in to the pure emotionality of it, who gives a shit about the technique. It's there, but unstudied and purely natural. Other singers that might fall under this rubric would be Robert Johnson, Hank Williams, Howlin' Wolf, Billie Holiday, Otis Redding, Sandy Denny, to name just a few that come to mind. All of which seem to possess a natural gift that others then later try to emulate by imitation and/or training with variable levels of success.