Loudest singers

Subject: Loudest singers
From: GUEST,guest
Date: 18 Feb 05 - 03:29 PM

I know of some folk clubs who will not book some singers because they sing too loud !! Who are the loudest singers you,ve heard and would singing loudly put club organisers off from booking them.
                Two fine singers with BIG voices that I enjoy listening to are Bob Davenport and Johnnie Collins.

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 18 Feb 05 - 03:32 PM

Cllr has been known to blast a few eardrums, so has Morticia. I've done for a few in my time but the winner has to be the late lamented Chris Gorniak... before his illness he could be heard halfway down the road from the Barn at Towersey - even during his illness, having had lung removed, he still had an amazing amount of volume!

LTS

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: alanabit
Date: 18 Feb 05 - 03:38 PM

In a long busking career, I only met two singers whom I reckoned were clearly louder than me. One of them was Paul McNeil. He smoked too, which made it all the more amazing. He was some singer though.

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 18 Feb 05 - 03:49 PM

Tom Lewis
Bob Webb
Don Sinetti

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 18 Feb 05 - 03:50 PM

My vote would go to Don Sinetti. I've been known to get some good volume and projection - and I stand in awe of the man.

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: Burke
Date: 18 Feb 05 - 04:45 PM

Any Sacred Harp singer, wear your ear-plugs. Tim Eriksen is a good example.

Time was when loud was good. Amplification has completely changed that. Some traditional singers should be very far from a microphone. I suspect some sound techs don't know how to deal with them.

I heard Libana doing Eastern European music in concert once with mics. They just did not sound right to me. To get the right kind of overtones, etc. it must be naturally loud.

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Feb 05 - 05:29 PM

Very loud, I'm sure. But I reckon any of them would have a job drowning out Dave Bryant, up until his stroke last year, anyway. But I gather though one arm still has limited movement, his voice is pretty well back to normal. A bit slurred, I've been told, but then it always has been...

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 18 Feb 05 - 07:13 PM

Nah, Johnny "pedlar of songs" Collins is king;
and Graeme "folk at its loudest and best" Knights is the heir apparent.
In the UK, that is.

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 18 Feb 05 - 07:41 PM

One mudcatter in particular has a very loud voice. I am referring to Richard Bridge, who sings at most of the venues that I attend regularly. I can't recall ever having heard any comments, adverse or otherwise, on the volume. We are generally too busy enjoying the songs he performs to notice. And he does, like most good singers, exercise control to suit the song. It's not how loud that matters, it's how melodious.

Don T.

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: kendall
Date: 18 Feb 05 - 08:00 PM

My vote goes to Leadfingers.

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 18 Feb 05 - 08:26 PM

I thought Don Sineti's sister Nel was the loudest I've heard. Shirley you've heard of her.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: JennyO
Date: 18 Feb 05 - 08:35 PM

I think Danny Spooner is the loudest I've heard, with a voice that would peel wallpaper - and no, it certainly wouldn't put me off having him at my folk club! He's great - and a really nice bloke too. He was going to be on at Sandra's club The Loaded Dog next week, but he's gone and went and broken his leg. To quote Sandra:

"Danny Spooner has gone & broken his leg while bushwalking. For some reason he thought that 3 pins, plaster & crutches would stop him climbing the stairs at the Dog. I told him we would help him up the stairs (bump, bump, bump) but he decided he'd rather come back in August"

For a close second in the loudness stakes, my own John Warner (mudcatter jack halyard) would have to be right up there! He sang a collection of new songs at my folk club in December, which showed that although he can belt out a song and drown out most of us, he is also capable of light and shade when it is needed in a more sensitive ballad - and I'm not just saying this because I am biased ;-)

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: GUEST,Puck
Date: 18 Feb 05 - 08:49 PM

Johnny Collins ...sings loud to the point where I think his singing sometimes suffers - I have been to maritime festivals where he has damaged his voice by day two. I think he is in a tricky spot because people now expect him to be so loud. Another good loud singer is Jim Mageean

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 18 Feb 05 - 10:12 PM

I would have expected Dave Bryant to be on anyone's list.

John Barden can really run it on when so intending.

Paul Hurst, with whom JB used to work, also had plenty of power.

Johnny Silvo used to include some very very loud bits, too.

I'm not as loud as I'd like to be (thanks all the same DT): mostly it was that Jacqui used to keep telling me that I had to be louder or she couldn't hear me at all when she was herself singing. The really loud bits I do are only a few milliseconds in a couple of songs - Captain Captain, and my protest song about the Licensing Act, where I rhymed Howells, and Jowell with "bowels" - and in those cases it was just a short shout.

I think the loudest I know of (save as follows) is our daughter Rachel. One Rochester Sweeps, when she would have been about 15 or 16, before the Eagle went electric, the pub was noisy, and she did Rickety-Tin. DB was almost nose to nose with her singing harmony. She took umbrage and turned it on, and he was almost inaudible. Keith Pearson at the old Oast, where they had a small PA rig, used to say she was the only person who ever lit all the lights on it up, and when she did Whip Jamboree, even with the mics almost right off, people who were in the know used to get well away from the speakers.

But at the end of the day, I think Triality have to take it - all three of them play (not all the time) brass instruments - from trombone to cornet - and to get the voices up to the equivalent level really does take some doing. It is said a cornet can reach 130 Db at the mouth of the bell.

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 18 Feb 05 - 10:57 PM

Sometimes loud is just the opposite of what a song needs, and there can be a tendency to oversing the song.. I think of a song like Everybody Hurts by REM. Certainly "loudest" wouldn't be the right approach to that song..

Jerry (As loud as I need to be)

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 18 Feb 05 - 11:33 PM

Quite right Jerry (though the thought of Johnny Collins singing "Everybody hurts" at shanty festival is a bit too much to bear...).

Johny Collins (and Jim Mageean too, with whom he sometimes duets) is a shanty (and other English trad) singer; sensitivity is not required in shanties, rhythm, pitch and volume are what he needs, and he's got that in spades.

Dave Bryant sings mainly music-hall ( at least the times I've seen him) and he is loud, but not at shanty-singing levels.

Graeme Knights straddle the area between the two (he does both shanties and music-hall, and he has quite a few reflective songs too). He can be very soft when needed, and he can turn it on when needed too, at scary levels.

Leadfingers is like Graeme in ability to vary volume. But he rarely does shanties, so I have never heard him at max volume, so to speak. He does have a piercing quality to his voice, which carries a distance (his experience of open air concerts, market fair singing etc must help him a lot there).

But the shantymen have it, for me, when it come to loudness. I would order the singers mentioned as follows, going up the scale: Leadfingers, Dave Bryant, Jim Mageean, Tom Lewis, Graeme Knights, Johnny Collins.

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: Once Famous
Date: 18 Feb 05 - 11:34 PM

It's not about loud, it's about voice control. Loud can be bellowing.

Don(wysizyg)T's description of Richard Bridge could also describe me.

Belt it out when you can. Use your voice to make dynamics effective.

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: Boab
Date: 19 Feb 05 - 02:45 AM

I never heard anybody who could better Brian Watson [Prudhoe, Northumberland] for sheer volume.He was a shanty-man in the main [pun not intended!], but could do credit to many another genre. I would point out to Martin[above], when it comes to shanties, we are dealing with worksongs, which were used by seamen to co-ordinate various "team-tasks" aboard ship ---e.g. pumping shanties, capstan shanties--- and were almost certainly delivered by shouting as much as by melodic singing.

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: Linda Kelly
Date: 19 Feb 05 - 04:09 AM

Well if you know Mick McGarry (Ossonflags) you will well know he can shake the earwax a bit but in contrast he also does beautiful, soft renditions of songs like Easy & Slow. Hazel and I have also sung with Mick many times and he is careful never to drown us out.

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 19 Feb 05 - 05:20 AM

Glad you clarified the music where "loud" is desireable. I prefer the word "Strong," meself. Shanties and worksongs certainly require a strong voice. That's true of any outdoor singing, where the air swallows your voice. In black gospel, I'd put energy and feeling first, which might translate into "loud" on one song, and soft on the next, depending on the mood of the song. Which makes me think of singers who can rip it up.

Jerry,

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 19 Feb 05 - 05:28 AM

Mudcats own ced2 can drown three guitars two fiddles and a tenor banjo with his voice, he has been known to clear pubs.

eric

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 19 Feb 05 - 08:10 AM

I've been known to clear pubs too... but that was more content than volume..... : ]

LTS

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 19 Feb 05 - 09:04 AM

This thread kinda caught me by syrprise, and I wonder if it reflects repertoire, and places where people sing mostly. Of the qualities I'd think of for a good singer, "loud" wouldn't even come to mind. Is this a british pub, sea/shantie thing? Any other Amuricans who think of singers in terms of how loud they are?

Don't mean any criticism here, friends... just wonder if this is a difference either between cultures, or repertoire, or both.

Just asking..

Jerry

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: nutty
Date: 19 Feb 05 - 11:20 AM

How about Theresa Tooley (Treaties) of Firm Friends and Shellback Chorus. An excellent turn of volume that can be matched by few ....... (although a close second would be the members of the Johnson Girls)

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Feb 05 - 12:26 PM

Don Sineti of the Mystic Seaport chanteymen and the singer Tom Lewis will blow your ears out if you are too close to either one of them on stage. Protective gear is required; plugs, muffs or a finger is suggested.

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 19 Feb 05 - 06:24 PM

It is an ability. Ability is to be admired. There may be other abilities also to be admired.

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 19 Feb 05 - 06:35 PM

I'm with you there, Richard. And how could I have forgotten Rachel. At full stretch she could shatter bricks, and with a voice range that would enable her to entertain everything from elephants to bats, if she so chose. Best of all, she has way more than enough talent to match the power and range.

Don T.

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Feb 05 - 07:07 PM

The thing is to be loud enough to be heard. Sometimes in a noisy environment the best way to do that can actually be to sing a quiet song, so that people shut up to listen.   It's got to be a song they want to hear. In an Irish pub a song in Irish will often do it.

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: Ferrara
Date: 19 Feb 05 - 08:46 PM

Jerry,

A loud (or very strong, shall we say) voice is a terrific asset in shantey singing among other things. It took a strong voice to carry over the noise of the sea, the wind, and activities on board ship. I've read that ships' officers also often had voices that could be heard over a strong gale.

A lot of the people mentioned here sing shanties at least half the time.

It's also an asset in certain types of chorus singing, or noisy bars, various places. Or if you're performing out doors in a noisy venue such as some festivals, even with a mike.

And, you know, some songs don't need sensitivity. Vigor and the ability to keep it afloat, so to speak, are more important in giving life to the song.

My son goes to, and sometimes leads, pub sing and shantey sings with his best friend. It took me a while to realize WHY the singing seemed so much better with them leading. It's because they have fine strong voices that "carry" and support the choruses. (and keep them on tune, too....) Note they also have the good taste to sing softly when that's what's called for. Far as I know, Don Sineti (sp?) doesn't have a "soft" setting on his volume switch but most of the singers mentioned on this thread do tailor their volume to the song and the space.

Rita

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: Bill D
Date: 19 Feb 05 - 09:17 PM

Don Sineti You can almost feel his voice thru the picture....there are stories of people from the area calling Mystic to complain when Don sings too late in the evening.

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 19 Feb 05 - 10:11 PM

Nice to hear from you Rita: Yes, that's what occurred to me early in this thread... the three occasions when loud is good.. sea shanties and work songs, singing in pubs (or bars over here) and singing outside. Transport those same songs into a livingroom or an intimate environment and at least to some extent, they need to be toned down a little.

I never heard of a sensitive singer schantieman. :-)

Jerry

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 20 Feb 05 - 05:27 AM

Yeah McGrath, I do that myself, and when it works it's real magic. I've become fairly well known at the Bedford Hotel sessions at Sidmouth, and I love it when I follow a 10 minute free for all diddly set, and the noise fades to silence during the first few words.

That's more of a high than applause at the end.

Don T.

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: nutty
Date: 20 Feb 05 - 05:52 AM

The thread title does say loudest singers

I suppose collectively there's few that can beat The Wilson Family

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: The Barden of England
Date: 20 Feb 05 - 05:52 AM

Yes, with you there Don, and as you know I've used that trick too. That's the joy of the Bedford sessions though isn't it - sometimes people actually listen.

By the way, Dave Bryant has been turning up at the Greyhound sessions in Maidstone. He's looking well, and his voice has not been affected, the power is still there. He's not playing guitar yet but I for one hope for a full recovery. Here's to you Dave.

John B

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 20 Feb 05 - 06:41 AM

I for one hope for a full recovery. Here's to you Dave

From me too.

Have you all forgotten about the late Martin Winsor already? He could drown fog horns. And together with Redd Sullivan, the ships would be blown clean out of the harbour. And add Bob Davenport...earsplitting,

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: Cats
Date: 20 Feb 05 - 09:40 AM

For loud and strong there's always Bev Arscott in the Forest of Dean. Now she can silence a shanty session, and she can also sing quietly and with amazing depth to her voice.

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Feb 05 - 02:06 PM

Me and phot are loud I've been in a shanty crew with leadfingers that was loud geoff higginbottom has a stentorian voice although at his best Johnny Collins is kinn sorry king (actully I was right the first time 'kinn loud)
Cllr sitting iin car on the way back from the sidmouth reunion

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: GUEST,guest
Date: 20 Feb 05 - 03:52 PM

Loud can be re-defined as being robust,strong, booming etc. When singing at outdoor festivals or noisy pubs without a microphone some singers tend to oversing or shout in order to be heard. Singers of Don Sinetti and Johnny Collins stamp have voices that carry and are naturally strong singers.
                         Others that come to mind are Tom Lewis,Geoff Higginbottom and Mainbrace (Duo from Wales).

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: GUEST,Puck
Date: 20 Feb 05 - 04:01 PM

You're right guest about Geoff Higginbottom... an excellent and a strong and solid voice...he has a real talent .I'd forgotten about him

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: Bernard
Date: 20 Feb 05 - 05:55 PM

Yup - my old mate Geoff has a powerful pair of lungs, and no mistake!!

It has been said I'm not so quiet meself...

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: Hawker
Date: 20 Feb 05 - 07:34 PM

My Old man Kevin Burrow has a darned loud voice, I am always amused when people near him in a sing around jump when he starts to sing!
Cheers, Lucy

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: Richard Atkins
Date: 20 Feb 05 - 07:44 PM

Too loud man "I come in through the window" :>)

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: Bill D
Date: 20 Feb 05 - 08:16 PM

Too piercing

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: My guru always said
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 09:05 AM

Must mention Alanww, definitely in the loud category when appropriate!

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: GUEST,GUEST
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 10:54 AM

A mention for Hilary Spencer, of Artisan - a great voice which can be earsplitting when needed.

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: GUEST,Gwyneth Try
Date: 20 Mar 21 - 06:21 PM

Dave Bryant was also ableblend into a choir and sing in a gentle voice when needed. I sang with him on many occasions in an early music/madrigal group of eight voices where he blended in as well as a choral society choir of a hundred.

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: Malcolm Storey
Date: 20 Mar 21 - 10:13 PM

I'm amazed nobody has mentioned Dave Brady.
He was responsible for the Wild Mountain Time being the closing song at Whitby Folk Week.

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: r.padgett
Date: 21 Mar 21 - 04:36 AM

Moose Rosser, Keith Kendrick, John Strong

in there somewhere

Ray

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: GUEST,Ray
Date: 21 Mar 21 - 05:33 AM

Definitely Ian McCalman. I once stood next to him in the back row of an audience. And my ears haven’t been the same since.

Subject: RE: Loudest singers
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Mar 21 - 05:46 AM

i reckon my voice is loud, but i do not consider it is the only thing of merit in judging a singer, tone, breath control, interpretation of lyrics plus the ability to sing qiuetly for effect if needed, are just as important in determining a good singer