^Hi - f

M
 THE lOO 6REATEST SINGERS OF ALL TIME 1

STEVE MARRIOTT
"One of the best British rock singers."

<2> Midge Ure

THE SMALL FACES PASSED THROUGH A FEW DIFFERENT

phases in their brief career, from Mod soulboys to music hall nos-
talgists, byway of woozy psychedelia. But if there was one thing
you could rely on, it was the passionate blaze of Steve Marriott's
voice. This was a voice that came out of a skinny little Cockney
kid yet sounded like it could tear up telephone directories. It was
a voice that battled loyally for every band he played with, includ
ing his next group, Humble Pie, and the procession of pub-rock
acts that he led until his premature end in 1991. Like a lot of
great rock singing, Marriott's style was a triumph of sheer spirit.
In a way it was a result of his influences, and of the obstacles in
his path. The first Small Faces gigs were a cacophony: the band
was "loud, notoriously loud!" he recalled. "If you can't play, play
oud!" Later Small Faces shows were no easier: "It was mad. A
bunch of noise, of screaming little girls. The PAs were archaic,
you could never hear. Monitors to me were people who brought
the milk round at school." How could he cope except by hollering
until his eyes watered? In any case, he was born to be an R&B
shouter. He loved Little Richard, James Brown, Otis Redding. He
could be soulful and explosive, and both at once if required.
Even the perfumed gardens of English flower power did not
sedate him. Faces' organist Ian McLagan confessed a distaste for
Marriott's softer moments on Itchycoo Park: "I can't bear that
pretty little voice. I want to smack him!" But then comes a roar
("It's all too beautiful!") and we're back in business. Marriott's
reputation has grown since. "It's not surprising," smiles his friend
Jim Leverton. "Steve always said, 'It's hard to kill vermin.'" (PDN)
Born: January 30, 1947 Died: April 20, 1991
Sublime moment: "Gotta! Gotta! Gotta!": at 2.18 urges All Or
Nothing home. (The Decca Anthology 1965-1961, Deram 1996)
Recommended: Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake (Immediate 1968)

K.D. LANG BRUCE idolatry of Parker and Gillespie,

Carter evolved into a jazz
What a joy to hear someone who SPRINGSTEEN
a>
singer of regal stature. An
119 M loves to sing so much." "Committed and astoundinglv powerful and
Holly Cole passionate.' exotic physical presence in
WHETHER PLAYING THE PART OF A PUNKY Dion DiMucci concert, she radically re
cowgirl (Angel With A Lariat), country diva REGARD FOR SPRINGSTEEN'S organises standards into
near-abstract medita
(ShadowlanJ), or androgynous cabaret chanteuse songwriting and mixed feelings
about the mid-'80s muscled-up tions, a customised
(Ingenue), the one constant of lang's career has
been her octave-spanning wonder of a voice. She stadium persona have deflected artillery of swoops and
fills the canvas of sound with a master artist's sighs and a tireless facility
appreciation from his heart, soul, for melodic improvisation
array of technique - perfect pitch, crystal tone skill and scope as a singer. He gets to
and show-stopping held notes that defy lung the core of everything he does from creating a unique sonic uni
Bruce: heart, soul verse. Feisty, funky and
capacity. For all her technical prowess, lang says, high old times (Glory Days, Jungleland), skill and scope.
"I am on a constant path of trying to learn how to the complicated depths of relationships uncompromising in her
to sing deeper and deeper with less physical musical vision (one album
(Racing In The Street), troubled introversion
(Brilliant Disguise) and hard political stories was called It's Not About The
strength, and to develop power from the internal,
from the spiritual plane and not from the physi (Galveston Bay). Additional exhibits on the Melody), she avoids listening to her own record
cal plane." (BdM) purely vocal front are his unbridled covers of ings lest tempted to recreate something she likes:
Edwin Starr's War and Jimmy Cliffs Trapped. "I don't want anything planned. I want every
Born: November 2, 1961
Sublime moment: Vocal shifts between 1.39 Furthermore, wordless, he's come out with a thing fresh and
score of the most hair-raising whoops, hollers new." (Chi)
and 2.09, Black Coffee (ShadowlanJ) and howls ever recorded. (PS)
Recommended: ShadowlanJ (Sire 1988) Born: May 16, 1930
Born: September 23, 1949 Sublime moment:
Sublime moment: The absolute passion of his The explosive accel
"Heart and soul" refrain from 6.09, Drive All erations of tempo
Night (The River, CBS 1980) signalled by her hoot
Recommended: Tunnel Of Love (CBS 1987) ing yawn "moooving
on" during the 26-
minute on improvisa
BETTY CARTER tion Still Moving On
"An unbelievably accurate
(The Audience With
vocaliser."
Betty Carter)
Robert Wyatt Recommended: The
NICKNAMED BETTY BEBOP BY HER LATE Audience With Betty
'40s employer Lionel Flampton, because of her Carter (Verve 1979)
 ROBERT Unplugged
proved he was
Robert Plant
PLANT just as intense The lemon dripper
with the volume
y<*^P^^ "Sounds like a What makes a great singer?
turned down. 1 A sense of drama.
I^T^L^ rockin' girl. I While a self-
^0j)l0W spent many a I wanted to sing because I like to be
inflicted shotgun blast
day singin' along." in the middle of the rumpus but can't really
Joan Jett stopped him developing play. I used to go behind the curtains at
any further, that album Christmas and do my rendition of A Fool Such
"I DIDN'T INVENT ANY- shows what might have As I by Elvis. Later I was doing a very poor
thing," the artist formerly been. (DT)
known as Percy once said. "I impression of the black music you'd hear on
wanted to sing like Ray Born: February 20, 1967 Tony Hall's Radio Luxembourg programme -
Died: April 5, 1994 Chris Kenner, Jesse Hill, Smokey Robinson. I
Charles and I was a bit of a
Sublime moment: 1.00 wanted to hear people really sing - Bobby
nancy hoy so that's what you Parker, Otis Rush - or squeal, like James Brown.
into Smells Like Teen
got" — "that" being the hol As time went on I was opening the whole
lering blues falsetto Zeppelin Spirit — the first chorus of falsetto thing, and squeezing my throat to
vocal style which, coupled the song, and the first time emulate Sleepy John Estes.
with the golden mane and most people heard him. When we first played You
stuffed trousers, became the (NeverminJ, Geffen 1991) Shook Me the guitar lines
template for all heavy rock frontmen. Plant was Recommended: UnpluggeJ In New York are so clear that you could
raised on rock'n'roll and R&B: pre-Zcp he (Geffen 1994) transfer them to a voice. By
fronted several Midlands R&B bands like The the time of Immigrant
Crawling King Snakes and Listen; post-Zep he
returned to it with rootsy sideband The CHUCK BERRY Song I was using it right,
then dropping down to a
Honeydrippers. Plant's critically-lauded solo
career followed diverse musical directions before
finding him back again with Page. Just don't ask
him to do Stairway To Heaven. "I loathe it." (SS)
cz> "He changed my world, the way I
think, act, feel, forever."
Eric Burdon

BERRY'S CRISP, CLEAN, ALMOST COUNTRY

baritone tenor to tell the
story. Later on I got so
embarrassed by it I didn't
use that style for 10, 12
years.
Born: August 20, 1948 vocals — heavily indebted to jump blucsman The first time I heard my
Sublime moment: feral banshee wail at 0.10 on Louis Jordan and, to a lesser extent, Fats voice recorded, I was
Immigrant Song (Led Zeppelin LIL) Domino — tend to be overshadowed embarrassed and continued
Recommended: Led Zeppelin III by his undeniable talents a.s lyri to be for many years. What I could hear inside
(Atlantic 1970) cist, songwriter, guitarist, my head seemed OK, but when I heard it back I
and showman. As a singer, was quite intimidated and shy. You have to move
Berry's basically a great to get some of the notes, to dramatise, sustain or
K U RT C O B A I N actor: witness his one- accentuate them. That's why when I saw Gene
^■^ " I l o v e a s c r e a m e r raised-eyebrow delivery Vincent he really did excite me. He was not well,
^^M*^m ana< he was one of of the "Meanwhile — in pain all the time, but when he performed he
^00W the best." I'm still thinkin"' line in was sensational - he had a menace. Those white
Skin, Skunk Anansie Little Queenie, his guys who were pushing the limits, I could ftA
deliberate mispronuncia relate to them best. (MS) / /
IN TERMS OF WHAT HE COULD
tion of "a la carty" in
have become, Cobain never left the
Promised Land, and his
starting blocks, but the desperado rockin' role-playing through M£SL.
passion which ignited Teen Spirit kept out It Wasn't Me, Brown Eyed Charley Patron "In half the world's blues bars
blazing for the rest of his life. Effortlessly Handsome Man, Almost Grown, Too Much there's a bit of Charley coming out... and people
combining moments of heartbreaking (some
Monkey Business — and just about everything think it's Robert Johnson."
say Lennonesque) vulnerability with wasted else he ever recorded. (DW)
raw power, Cobain pushed his voice to the Skip James
f Elvis Presley "Everybody's always raving about the
edge — of laryngitic collapse, of heartbroken Born: October 18, 1926 Sun recordings, but I love Big Hunk Of Love."
despair. But whereas three studio albums Sublime moment: The three-in-the-morning, Arthur Lee
established him as a screamer par excellence, mellow Wee Wee Hours (The Great 28) Bo Diddley
Recommended: The Great 28 (MCA 1997) ; Skip Spence "If you want to feel cheerful in the
morning, open the day with Oar. Amazing voice."
Screamer par
excellence,
LIAM Smokey Robinson
Om Kalsoum "Total drama."
Kurt Cobain. 6ALLACHER *" lain Matthews
Jeff Buckley "He was such a natural talent."
jl^BJ^^ "When his voice arrived on

tM
^^JZ'jM tr|e scene, it was like a
^*0JH^^ breath of fresh air."
John Power, Cast
,
"AS SOON AS IT'S MY TIME TO howling-into-the-void phase; by the time of
shine, I'm in there," said an ever-reticent (What's The Story) Morning Glory? he had started
Liam in 1997. He fixated on the micro to add knowing restraint to his approach. Be
phone having surmised that The Stone Here Now, despite lacklustre material, shows
Roses' Ian Brown Liam cautiously embracing the light and shade
was the coolest of vocal maturity. (JH)
human on earth — Born: September 21,
but whereas most 1972
Brown disciples
Sublime moment: All of
cooed, Liam discov
ered that he could Champagne Supernova —
from hushed verse,
dispense his vocals
with a mewling brio through star-gazing cho
that owed as much rus, to the divine middle
to Lennon and eight (Morning Glory?)
Lydon. Cigarettes Recommended: (What's
And Alcohol is the The Story) Morning Glory?
touchstone of his (Creation 1995)

_3£
 THE lOO GREATEST SINGERS OF ALL TIME
TOM JONES
o He's an enter
tainer and
exudes sex.
There's a quality in his voice
that will never be heard again."
Robbie Williams
THE RANGE, POWER, CONTROL AND
thick, rich tone redolent of burnished brass are
inescapable. But this swivel-hipped slab of
beefcake in a tux was also far more versatile
than all the other raised-on-Tin Pan Alley cats,
cutting pop (It's Not Unusual), country (Green
Green Grass Of Home), soul (She's A Lady)
and funk (Kiss)
hits. As if inspiring
legions of house
wives to toss their
undergarments on
stage wasn't reason
enough to worship
his feats, there's
always his 1969-71
TV show, where he
duetted with every
one from Little
Richard and Janis
Joplin to Jerry Lee
Lewis — and was
never disgraced.
(DW)
Born: June 7, 1940.
Sublime moment: The deadpan delivery of
that final pay-offline, "You and your pussycat —
nose" in the '65 smash What's New Pussycat
Recommended: The Ultimate Collection
(BMG 1998)
JIMIHENDRIX
"A great, under-
<E> • M rated soul singer.
Ian Brown
HENDRIX'S VOCAL PERSON-
ality was the classic talking-blues
style riding rocket boosters into
the space-age, with the saucy
panache of Chuck Berry, the
fragile conscience of Curtis
Mayfield and the burnt soul ot
Otis Redding all combining within
Jimi's relaxed and playful sense of
character. Though remembered as one of
the all-time great guitarists, vocally Hendrix was
capable of great sensitivity — 1983, Little Wing —
beyond his more flamboyantly libidinal out
bursts, and his warmth and good humour gave
even his most serious work an engaging
approachabilitv, compared to his more pompous
'progressive' colleagues. (AG)
Born: November 27, 1942
Died: September 18, 1970
Sublime moment: The sense of looming por
tent Hendrix brings to the two climactic lines
(at 3.15) of All Along The Watchtower
(Electric LaJylanJ)
Recommended: Electric Ladyland (Polydor 1968)
DEAN MARTIN
"So impossibly great he didn't
C2> even have to try."
Mike Scott
HE WAS ONE OF ELVIS PRESLEY'S VOCAL
role models. An underappreciated voice, Dean
didn't so much sing as massage each note into
JUDYCARLAND
/"^^^^^ "I am fascinated by her. I love
^fr*J| B her voice and how hard she
^^9KIKf^ WOrKCa.
Yungchen Lhamo
LANA TURNER TOLD JUDY GARLAND,
"I'd give all the beauty I have for your tal
ent — the expression in your face — your
singing." Born Frances Ethel Gumm,
Garland began singing in public on Boxing
Day, 1924, when her parents brought her
on-stage at their Grand Rapids, Michigan
theatre to sing Jingle Bells. By her third
birthday, she had gone professional.
She changed her name in her early
teens, retaining 'Garland' from the
surname comedian George Jessel
had convinced the Gumm Sisters to
adopt. Even then she had an ear for
great songwriters; 'Judy' was from a
little-known Hoagy Carmichael
song. Her affection would later be
returned by countless Tin Pan Alley
legends. Irving Berlin put it succinctly —
"She is a songwriter's dream." Lyricist E.Y.
'Yip' Harburg enthused, "She is so attuned,
has such an affinity for music and lyrics,
you don't have to tell Judy anything."
Garland is renowned for her singing voice,
but her recordings for the most part enjoyed
only modest commercial success, save for
her 1961 sm&sh]udy At Carnegie Hall. Her
reputation principally rests upon her perfor
mances in films and in concert. Amazingly,
her best-loved recording, Over The
listeners' psyches like a men
tholated balm. His public
persona, the tipsv bon viveur
with a golf tan and an eve for
the ladies, eventuallv eclipsed
his smooth vocal talent, but
for Dino it was all part of the
easy-does-it illusion he creat
ed. "The thing is not to seem
to try too hard," he once
said. "If I'm relaxed myself,
I can relax an audience.
Rainbow, was nearly cut from The Wizard
Of Oz, when MGM decided the song slowed
down die film.
Garland is regarded by many as one of the
last greats of the old-time showbiz tradition,
yet she also represented a bridge between
that glamorous, expansive school of per
formers and the more realistic, introspective
ones who followed. In the 1940s, a few odier
female singers, like Marlene Dietrich, used
androgyny as a selling point but Garland's
gender-bending had a faint sense of whimsy,
as though she really enjoyed wearing men's
clothes. During her later years, she favoured
an orange sequined suit that made her look,
in one critic's words, like "a pantomime
principal boy, lost in a back street".
Beyond a doubt, Garland's greatest con
tribution to the performing world was her
nightclub performances. Before her physi
cal and emotional deterioration, she was, to
quote Sammy Davis Jr, "the greatest enter
tainer in the world". It was only after her
death that the sacrifices she made for the
sake of her performances came to light.
During her last years, she told a reporter, "I
have a truly great love of an audience, and I
used to want to prove it to them by giving
them blood." (DE)
Born: June 10, 1922 Died: June 22, 1969
Sublime moment: Over The Rainbow and
its guaranteed Pavlovian effect on listeners'
tear ducts (The Wizard GfOz, Decca 1951)
Recommended:/ut/r At Carnegie Hall
(Capitol 1961)
That's one of the secrets of
being an entertainer." (BdM)
Born: Dino Crocetti, June 7,
1917
Died: December 25, 1995
Sublime moment: the final
verse — sung warmly, in Italian,
at 1.43-2.08 - on Return To
Me (The Capitol Years, Capitol
1996)
Recommended: King Of Cool -
Greatest Hits (Capitol 1998)
 poll, their three voices were consis
tently nominated as one. Individually,
their tones are tremulous (Robin),
breathy (Barry) and throaty (Maurice).
Together, Musketeers-style, you have a
sound as unique as any in pop. Barry's
1975 discovery of falsetto ushered in a new era
of vocal splendour. "It's nice to be a falsetto
voice that's well-known. Falsetto's been an inte
gral part of rock'n'roll," Barry opines. (BdM)
Born: September 1, 1947 (Barry), December
22, 1949 (twins Robin and Maurice)
Sublime moment: Old Bee Gees' sound meets
the new, 2.36-3.36, Nights On Broadway (Main
EDITH PIAF Course, RSO 1975)
Recommended: Best! 2000 (RSO/Polydor 1990)
"She knows when to belt it, when
to whisper it and when to break
Tom Jones
Soul boyo
I think singing is a God-given
1 gift, I don't think you can
learn to sing. I've never known life with
out my voice, even when I was a child it was
there. I really can't remember a time where I
was not singing - it's that natural to me. As far
as developing technique goes, at 19 I took a
few singing lessons, and my teacher made me
very aware of my breathing and how to control
it - I also learnt to relax, it's so important not to
be tense on stage. She actually thought I should
be an opera singer, but I wasn't interested.
In the studio my performance comes from the
song itself. I live with
the song, its emotions

Eddi Reader
your heart." NICK CAVE and I find out how to
approach it. The song
^■^ " Yo u r e a l l y g o t t a b e b r a v e , a n d has to speak for itself, I
DON'T LET THE LEGEND OVERSHADOW ft J f tjj Nick is. Always."
just have to act it out. I
the enduring intensity and spine-chilling quality ^^000* Henry Rollins think if you're record
of that voice. Born in a Paris gutter, the scandal,
FOLLOWING HIS FULL-THROATED PER- ing it's better if there
tragedy and alcoholism which turned her into a formances with The Birthday Party, Nick Cave's isn't anybody there -
heroic icon often obscures the totality of Piaf s just you and the song.
singing style altered markedly during his subse It's like making love in
rasping power. Her voice was imbued with a kind
of madness born of rootless desperation, dancing quent solo career, as, under the influence of
such as Leonard Cohen, private rather than in
on the very limits of our emotional public. When I record I
his demonic screech
nerve-ends. The Little Sparrow sang like to concentrate fully
and Milord, La Vic En Rose and Le developed into a more on the song - when you
Chant d'Amour tore at our heart and complex, lugubrious are on stage you are
baritone. "I discovered aware of the audience
lit up the world. She should never
a different way to sing as much as the song
have been bullied into singing in
when we were doing itself. The reward is in "I wanna be your
English, but hey, no regrets... (CI) the cover versions performing it live, fantasy." Tom
Born: December 19, 1915 album, Kicking Against that's when it really makes love in publii
Died: October 11, 1963 The Pricks, simply comes to life. In the
Sublime moment: That killer, because I was singing studio it's more techni
bloodcurdling, planet-stopping deliv other people's songs," cal; you record it, then listen to it and be satis
ery of Je Ne Regrette Rien (The he explained. "I discov fied with it, then you have to wait for the reac
Complete Piaf) ered a quality I hadn't tion to it when it is put out. The real kick comes
Recommended: The Complete Fiaf realised was there when you perform it live, because the AA
(EMI 1983) before, a more affecting reward is instant. (JM) • /

quality." Like his pre

THE GIBB cursor Jim Morrison,
Cave's vocal style is per Jmiba'a Amee.
BROTHERS fectly suited to his dra Jackie Wilson

d>
"A voice you have matic material, a series
to respect." of sometimes shocking narratives scarred with
Lou Christie death and stained with tears. (AG)
THERE'S NO HARMONY AS SWEET AS Born: September 22, 1957
that of shared DNA. Since the Gibbs first com Sublime moment: the sustained weary menace
bined voices as prc-pubesccnt lads, there's been throughout Red Right Hand (Let Love In)
a breathtaking alchemy at work — hence, in this Recommended: Let Love Ln (Mute 1994)
ers, one DNA chain: (from left) Maurice, Barry and Robin. MERLE
HAGGARD
^^^*W "Politically incor-
W « VjM rect. Musically top
^ m 0 W fl i g h t . "
Van Dyke Parks
THE SON OF OKIES, HAGGARD
grew up in California idol
ising Left)' Frizzell, and
unapologetically based
his style around the
way Lefty bent notes
and changed pitch
within a syllable. Fie
turned 21 in San
» . Quentin. "He was a
cross between James
Dean and Lefty
Frizzell," said ex-wife
p. Bonnie Owens. Train
songs, drinking songs, prison
songs, even redneck anthems
(Nixon and his reactionary
Aretha Franklin "Just listen to her sing I Never
Loved A Man (The Way I Loved You)"
Brook Benton
Jerry Lee Lewis
Whitney Houston
■■" Solomon Burke
*- Elvis Presley
- Big Bill Broonzy
*• Little Richard
*•* Chuck Berry
l"* Mahalia Jackson "For her version of The Old
Rugged Cross. Really, if everyone else gets 10
choices, I need 11."
cronies failed to realise Okie From Muskogee
was written as a joke) become real in the hands
of a man revered for repeatedly
rejecting Tinsel Town and re
stating his loyalty to old-fash
ioned country values. (CI)
Born: April 6, 1937
Sublime moment: As he
sings, "I've spent most all
my life searching for that
four-leaf clover", on That's
The Way Love Goes, the
weary low note on "life"
(0.26) suggests years lost in a
fruitless quest.CThat's The Way
Love Goes, Columbia 1983).
Recommended: The Fightin' Side Of Me
(Capitol, 1970)
 THE 1QO GREATEST SINGERS OF ALL TIME

Kate Bush: the material, gained an unsuspected depth and richness, very soon
revealed on masterful sequels such as The Man With The Child In
pre-Raphaelite
His Eyes.
Minnie Mouse
that roared. From Hounds Of Love (1985), through The Sensual World to The
Red Shoes, Bush's delivery has become even more intimate and
perhaps less pyrotechnic. On the one hand she's the most secret
star in British pop; on the other, she bares her longings and her
pain with unparalleled frankness.
At first she was a convent schoolgirl with an imagination that
was almost too vivid to be usefully channelled. If she was EMI's
"favourite daughter", she was not unlike the company's favourite
son, Paul McCartney - both were blessed with a prodigious gift
for melody that their conceptual abilities struggled to keep pace
vyith. Three or four albums into her career, her songs stopped
sounding like scrapbooks and turned into diaries, with all the cor
responding emotional freight. Here is where her singing switched
from a beguiling novelty to a darkly potent brew. It still swoops
through the octaves with a giddying swiftness, but given the
greater sophistication of her -songwriting in recent years, the effect
is to dramatise her emotional range, not merely to parade the
colourful characters in her dressing-up box.
The sparseness of her output and the guarded privacy of Bush's
life have conspired against her reputation: it's too easily forgotten
what a quietly influential presence Kate has been. Of late she's
made a welcome habit of collaborating with The Trio Bulgarka,
whose ethereal voices blend wonderfully widi her more strident
tones — each, in its way, presents you with something that's inca
KATE BUSH pable of insincerity. Bush is still a gawky lyricist at times, but in her

d> "Exquisite, original, unique, passionate, fearless."

Mike Scott

IT WAS PIERCED EARS ALL ROUND WHEN

singing she achieves an emotional truth that words alone can rarely
locate. (PDN)
Born: July 30, 19S8
Kate arrived in 1978. Those pet-worrying shrieks on Wuthering Sublime moment: Heart-rending emotional gear-change, as post-
Heights suggested an eccentric talent, but not a voice you'd come romance bravery gives way to grief at 0.S4, You're The One (on
to consider sensuous. Yet the pre-Raphaelite nymph with Minnie The Red Shoes, EMI 1993)
Mouse's soprano went on to surprise us all. Her voice, like her Recommended: The Whole Story (EMI 1986)

LUTHER LEVI STUBBS

VAN DROSS v^^^^k. Levi Stubbs combined an amazing
U i\y instrument with the most urgent
y^^r^Ai "How did Luther come up with ^^000^' delivery of his time. In an era of
§j{l this haunting shit? Perfect." changing lyrical styles, Levi's voice made it
^ 0 W 0 ^ D a r i u s R u c k e r, H o o t i e A n d
all believable." ^
The Blowfish John Sebastian
THE GREATEST OF CABARET VETS THE FOUR TOPS WERE
the '80s soul men, the slickest of Motown vocal groups, but thanks
Luther Vandross to the unrivalled intensity of Levi Stubbs, also
sprang from the ranks among the most dynamic. Even at their sweetest
of New York's back
(Babv I Need Your Lovin') Stubbs sounds like he
ing-singer cartel at a could explode at any moment. When he does, on
time when distinctive the incomparable Bernadette, his desperation is
black voices had taken at once a magnificent act of art-making and an
a demeaning back uncontainable force of nature. It's the gospel sig
seat to programmed nature of poise and abandon, writ more
beats. From the off, forcefully than any pop voice outside Aretha's.
on his 1981 hit Never Levi Stubbs can not only sing the phone book,
Too Much, it was a he'll make you believe life and death arc riding on
joy to hear a voice every syllable. (BE)
LEFTY FRIZZELL
that combined purring sensuality with glossy ^^^P^kv "Lefty and George Jones are the
Born: June 6, 1936 ■ )TiB two most soulful singers ever to
sophistication. Vandross's singing isn't so much
about libido as about grace, finesse, control and Sublime moment: The shouted "They'd give ^^000^ have graced country music."
the world and all they own for just one moment
restraint. "People tend to see me platonically, Robbie Robertson
we have known" just 0.40 into Bernadette (Reach
fraternally," he explains. "They don't lust." Rich WILLIE NELSON LOVED LEFTY'S
and resonant, it's a voice that builds from a dark Out Motown 1967)
Recommended: Four Tops Anthology (Motown innovative way of things, his drawling phrases,
baritone to an airy falsetto: singing that caresses
1989) that oddball pronunciation, all born of a man
even as it defers to catharsis. (BH) who hailed from Texas but was raised in
Born: April 20, 1951 Arkansas and Louisiana. Merle Haggard based his
Sublime moment: 3.35 into Any stvle on that of Lefty's, Frizzell himself once
Love, when Vandross reaches the peak commenting: "Merle's used some of the things
of his range on the phrase "I've got to like the curves and slurs, because he liked the
be very strong/To keep holding on..." way I sing." Believers in things country con
curred. At one point, William Orvillc Frizzell had
(Any Love)
Recommended: Any Love (Epic 1988) four records in the country music Top 10
K ^illP i
The explosiy; Levi
Stubbs (far r ight).
i
»
simultaneously. A honky-tonk hero but romantic
with it. And yes, his life was full of booze and
resulting turbulence — as laid down in the Hank
Williams textbook. (FD)
Born: March 31, 1928
Died: July 19, 1975
Sublime moment: Trademark slurred pro-
nounciation of "time", part sung, part
yodelled at 0.07 in If You've Got
The Money Honey, I've Got The
Time (Life's Like Poetry, Bear
Family 1992)
Recommended: The Best
Of (Rhino)
ETTA
JAMES
"One of
the most
powerful
singers ever. She may
have settled into one vein,
but she can do it across the
board vocally."
Irma Thomas
THANKS TO A WILD-LIVING
mother, Etta James was exposed to all kinds
of music from an early age, and whether she
realised it or not, she was synthesizing it into a
remarkable mixture. "I had a man's voice; in
school I would sing with the boys," she says, but
few boys have her ability to be seductively kitten
ish and then turn around and growl. Who's the
real Etta? The comforter of Tell Mama, the
ballsy gal denying she's a Pushover, the proto-
feminist of Do I Make Myself Clear (recorded
with her cousin Sugar Pie DeSanto), the
bereaved lover of All I Could Do Is Cry, or the
(gasp!) country singer of Almost Persuaded? The
answer, of course, is yes. (EW)
Born: Jamesetta Hawkins, January 25, 1938
Sublime moment: Losers Weepers (Losers
Weepers, Chess 1970)
Recommended: Etta James Rocks The House
(MCA/Chess 1964)
JIM MORRISON
"Sounded like Robert Goulet on
c%>
an acid trip. Cool."
Alice Cooper
THOUGH REMEMBERED MORE AS A
lyricist and showman than a singer, Jim
Morrison introduced to rock music a self-con-
sciously dramatic type of singing that
tried to discover the common ground Levi Stubbs
between black R&B and the smooth Reach Out! The Top Top
style favoured by white MOR artists.
His characteristic sour croon was Singing is all about communi
Morrison's own variant on the whined cating emotion. The quality
of the voice means nothing. It really
sneer that Dylan had demonstrated was the
doesn't. If you want to be technical about it,
best way for rebellious white kids to approxi
the voice of Ray Charles is something you really
mate the vocal charisma of black blues
pay not too much attention to, because his tone
singers. Set against the whirl of jazz, and delivery are so magnificent that you're car
blues and classical influences in The
ried away with that.
Doors' driving rock, the effect was
I developed my
stunning, enabling him to switch own voice gradually.
within the span of a single line I probably always
from poet to jester to sybarite could sing some
and back again. (AG) what, and maybe
Born: December 8, 1943 because of that I
didn't pay as much
Died: July 3, 1971
Sublime moment: The entire
attention to it as I
should have. It was
18-minute version of The End,
my cousin Jackie
recorded in 1970 at New York's Wilson that set me
Madison Square Garden, as
straight and taught
included on The Doors box set me how to focus. He told me, 'Levi, what you've
(Elektra 1997). gotta do is close your eyes and sing what you
Recommended: Morrison Hotel see.' I didn't know what that meant, but he
(Elektra 1970) showed me.
As for recording, you have to have a song.
You have to know that song from the inside.
JOHN LEE HOOKER You just can't read a song. You have to have
studied - and to a certain extent have lived -
that song. If you do that, the performance
» W aD'e> but has this menacing
€ i ^ ^ "0G^i v u
e sn dyeorut o tnhee. " c h i l l s , s o v u l n e r - flows. You can't summon anything, really,
because then it'll be contrived. And the whole
Shirley Manson
point, especially in the studio, is to get beyond
AS A YOUNG MAN, contrivance and try to capture some- M
Hooker was the voodoo thing honest." (BE) / /
preacher of the blues.
Crouched in back of
the shop studios on ■l e f t
Detroit's Hastings
Frank SinaWMy favourite. Sinatra is a storyteller;
Street, he muttered
incantations, warnings he paints a complete picture when he sings. His
technique and breath control are unmatched."
and sex boasts, or
Billie Holiday
presided over the pri Sam Cooke
vate dances of Devil's
Little Willie John "One of the best phrasers there
Jump or Boogie ever was. He could take a melody and make it do
Chillun. In his middle years he issued invitations whatever he wanted, yet never get caught up in it.
to the open house parties of Dimples and Boom He always knew exactly where he was."
Boom, salted with a dark soy sauce of affable Johnny Mathis
menace. Late Hooker is a unique self-invention,
master of the sudden beady glance and the
Aretha Franklin "Nothing is contrived."
Philippe Wynne "An incredible singer. To me, he
brooding menace, less preacher than judge. was up there with Aretha when it comes to heart."
More than anyone he wields the dark magic of Barbra Streisand
the blues voice. (TR) Felix Cavaliere "Great feel. You can't help but be
attracted to those Rascals records."
Born August 22, 1920 John Lennon "People always talk about black
Sublime moment: the lightly twined voice and
singers with soul. Everybody has soul, and John had
guitar lines of 1949's Moaning Blues (John Lee a big one. The quality of your voice does not mat
Hooker Sings Blues, Ember 1998) ter; it's what you bring forth with it."
Recommended: The Legendary Modern
Recordings 1948-54 (Ace 1993)
RONNIE Walking In The Rain.
Not a diva, perhaps, but
SPECTOR Ronnie's voice touched a
s-^mrn^ "I love that vibrato - it generation who'd never
M^yjW j)W give Be My Baby such clapped eyes on such a
^^0*0* a special sound." tough little vixen. (BFI)
Brian Wilson Born: August 10, 1943
RONNIE SPECTOR MADE UP for Sublime moment:
her lack of finesse with pure teen "We've got so much we
conviction. With her abrasive whine share", at 1.52 on the
and heavy vibrato, she was the voice Ronettes' (Walking In
of the New York street corner raised The Rain) (London
to a pitch of incandescent passion. As single, 1964)
such, the voice remains one of the Recommended:
great pop instruments, captured Presenting the Fabulous
Ronettes Featuring
definitively on the pleading Be My
Veronica
Baby and Baby I Love You, and on
the magnificent wail-a-thon that was (London 1964)
 O GREATEST SINGERS OF ALL TIME
The Moon's A Harsh Mistress (from
Reunion: The Songs Of Jimmy Webb,
Capitol, 1972)
Recommended: The Glen Campbell
Collection (1962-1989) (Razor & Tie
1997)
SCOTT WALKER
; J unpretentious crooning.
€ r ^ ^ 0W
" R i cIh ,love
f a t ,singing
p o m p along."
ous yet
Sarah Cracknell
AS A MEMBER OF THE WALKER
Brothers Scott first demonstrated that he
had a voice guaranteed to leave venues with
wettened seats. His vibrato was sometimes errat
ic, but otherwise it was just warm brandy all the
way. Looks, phrasing, technique, he had it all.
His first four solo albums proved to be magnifi
cent, full of beauty allied to drama.
Along the way, Scott become more
remote. Pop's answer to Ingmar
Bergman, his records proving
almost cold to the touch. Not
that his voice has worsened;
it remains a superb instru
ment, still a croon to swoon
to. Except that Scott doesn't
care for that sort of thing
any more. File under
'Enigmatic'. (FD)
Born: January 9, 1944
Sublime moment: Opening
stanzas up to 1.09 on Montague
Terrace (In Blue) set against Walk
Stott's compelling string arrangement.
The essence of romance. (Scott, Fontana, 1967)
Recommended: Boy Child - The Best Of 1967-
19 70 (Fontana 1990)

JANIS JOPLIN
<2>
"Her gravelly, bluesy voice cut new
ground for female vocalising."
Joan Jett

HER THROATY GROWL EVOKED THE

ghosts of long-dead blues queens. Her feathered
boas, boozy antics and fuck-you attitude caught
the emergent '60s hippy ethos perfectly. Her
brief star-turn changed how women would sing
the blues forever. While her operatic life may
have over-shadowed her actual talents as a
singer, she left enough high-water marks behind
to justify her reputation, including the raw,
hyperbolic Summertime; and, of course, Piece
Of My Heart, her very own Over The Rainbow.
She died alone in a seedy Hollywood hotel, with
only one vocal to complete for her credible
comeback album, Pearl. That was for the Nick
Gravenites song, Buried Alive In The Blues -
which ultimately would be her own epitaph. (JS)
Born: January 19, 1943
Died: October 4, 1970
Sublime moment: Quivering, throbbing, pant
THOM YORKE
o
floating over Jonny Greenwood's glistening
ing her way through Ball And Chain in the movie riffs, draping his cryptic, elliptical lyrics
'The obvious choice."
Monterey Pop
Stephen Jones, Babybird across the band's dense rhythms. "I didn't
Recommended: Cheap Thrills (Columbia 1968)
feel any need to exorcise things within

GLEN CAMPBELL
"That voice is just honey."
Cerys Matthews
HOTSHOT SESSION GUITARIST, SHORT-
term Beach Boy, TV and film star, pop-country
hitmaker, golfer, these things define Glen
Campbell the celebrity. But if anything, they
obscure his enormous worth as a singer. His
ultra-smooth tenor —
expanded an octave, he
says, by his 1965 stint as
Brian Wilson's road
replacement — is equally
convincing selling classics
like Wichita Lineman
and Where's The
Playground Susie or slick
comeback stuff like
Rhinestone Cowboy. If
he has a shortcoming, it's
only that he makes every
thing sound so damn
easy. (BE)
Born: April 22, 1936
Sublime moment:
Every gorgeous second of
FROM FAIRLY INAUSPICIOUS BEGIN-
nings - a standard British epic rock voice
cobbled together from bits of Bono,
McCulloch, even (God forbid) Jim Kerr -
Thorn Yorke has developed a sound of
astonishing power and range. The long vocal
lines and falsetto passages were there on
Pablo Honey, but they hadn't yet coalesced
into a distinctive instrument. That hap
pened during The Bends sessions, when
Yorke recorded the vocal for the primarily
acoustic Fake Plastic Trees. Arguably heard
at its best on the album's gorgeous closing
track, Street Spirit (Fade Out), the Yorke
voice had now matured into a thing of rare
beauty: a voice which could build from
tremulous softness to soaring intensity,
supported by lungs able to sustain notes for
what seemed like forever.
When Yorke brought this voice into the
studio for OK Computer, even he had no
idea where it would take him. Swathed in
the album's glorious melodies and textures,
the runty genius approached his vocal takes
in an admirably open, intuitive manner,
myself this time," he told MOJO. "It wasn't
digging deep inside, it was more of a jour
ney outside and assuming the personalities
of other people." On Let Down and
Paranoid Android, Yorke's assured vibrato
was spellbinding, each wavering modulation
felt deeply; on Lucky and Exit Music, his
hushed anguish took your breath away.
Yorke has proved himself equally com
fortable outside the Radiohead orbit: listen
to his interpretations of Roxy songs on the
soundtrack to Velvet Goldmine, or to the
stunning Rabbit In Your Headlights on
UNKLE's Psyence Fiction. He even has an
imitator in tow — the fascinating Rufus
Wainwright, whose DreamWorks debut
betrays an extraordinary debt to the Yorke
larynx. (BH)
Born: October 7, 1968
Sublime moment: 1.3S into The Tourist
(OK Computer), the first time he soars into
"Hey man, slow down..."
Recommended: OK Computer (Parlophone
1997)

NICK DRAKE
"No one else has a voice that's
<3>
both as gentle and as strong."
Mark Eitzel
THE PROPERTIES OF THIS BLACK
Country boy's well-bred, wild-honey and rus
set-apple tones are often invoked by young men
wishing to follow in his tradition, but few have
conjured the sound convincingly since Drake's
passing. There were barely any precedents for it
either, perhaps the only one being The Zombies'
Colin Blunstone, who also mastered sounding
languid, leather-light and a bit posh yet deep,
serious and tender too. Nick Drake's voice is
youthful and quintessentially British but his
phrasing is remarkably sophisticated — swinging,
mature, universal. It's a sweetly thrilling combi
nation. The secret died with him. (JI)
Born: June 19, 1948
Died: November 25, 1974
Sublime moment: The ethereal, silty tumble of
Hazev Jane IPs first line, 0.25 (Bryter Layter,
Island 1970)
Recommended: Pink Moon (Island 1972)
NEIL YOUNG
^^^P^^ "It sounds like he can't sing, but
L #4 his voice is incredibly powerful
^*000^ and emotive. I love the character
and quirkiness of how he sings."
Neil Finn
IT'S THE DEEP AND KEENLY
sensitive pit of life that Neil Young
draws from to reach that beautiful,
outrageously high-end singing on
CSN8cY's Helpless and throughout
After The GolJrush. A bared soul
howling at the moon, his voice is as
rich as the well-resined pass of a vio
lin's bow. Not confined to pain's
pathos, this voice is built on crisp,
Canadian night air, joyful solitude, and folk
singing. He resonates
with soft acoustic gui
tars and, like a hurri
cane, adds force to
full-on rock'n'roll.
Desolate, pristine,
playful, dolorous,
capable of conveying
great anger and also
real pleasure: a voice
for all occasions. (RG)
Born: November 12, 1945
Sublime moment: the raindrop Robbie Williams
alienness of Don't Let It Bring You King of Pop
Down (After The GolJrush)
Recommended: After The GolJ Rush You can't make rules about
what makes a great singer. It
(Reprise 1970) doesn't all have to be about technique
- what counts is whether it moves you.
ROBERT JOHNSON I wouldn't even call what I did singing up until
recently. It's only now that I'm actually learning.
^jr^^^^ "Man, oh man, the way he said But that's exciting - it means everything I've
^'Mt B it, didn't nothing more need to experienced is saved up for now.
^^00^ be said."
Really, I don't have to prepare too hard for
R. L. Burnside
singing now. Simply because in Take That I was
WHATEVER DEAL MAY HAVE GONE DOWN told how I should sing, how I should dress, how I
at that midnight crossroads, the gift Robert should act. But now I'm singing words that mean
something to me. It's so exciting I'm ndtu- 4h4fe
Johnson received was complete. The men were
mesmerised by his guitar prowess, and the little rally psyched up when I hit the studio. (PT) / /
girls heard something in his voice that could not
be denied. Seldom have an instrument and a ;
voice been so well matched, each reinforcing the j,:-..M f)M;&.
other's absolute inhabitation of confusion (32- Frank Sinatra
20 Blues), despair (Come On In My Kitchen) Chuck D
and terror (Hellhound On My Trail). Sex, pos Nat King Cole
' Ice Cube
session, death, damnation — these are not simply
Dean Martin
song subjects, or abstract elements of the well-
trodden Robert Johnson myth; they arc all made
"•" Tom Jones
John Lennon "He's the most
flesh in the high,
emotive of the lot."
haunted sound of his
Bono "An Irish master."
singing. (BE) Neil Tennant
Born: May 8, 1911 "Quintessentially English."
Died: August 16, 1938 Elton John "Get his Greatest Hits and you'll see why."
"■■'/.,;.t»fT-
^8 Sublime moment:
The first four lines of
Hellhound On My Trail Shaznay T. Lewis
(King of the Delta Blues Pop Saint
Singers, Columbia, 7 7 Great feeling and a passion for deliver-
1961) !•• ance is what makes a great singer.
Recommended: The Whatever you sing must come from the soul.
KRB Complete Recordings
(Columbia 1996)
It's not purely down to having a great voice.
My voice didn't arrive all of a sudden. I devel
oped it, finding out what it could or couldn't do,
what it liked or didn't like. It's still in develop
LOUIS ARMSTRONG ment, it develops and I learn more every day.
"Plays with the melody like a cat It's exciting when I'm in the studio for a vocal
Ct>
with a mouse." although at times it can be scary. I'm very partic
Vic Chesnutt ular and picky about vocals, they have to AA
be the best I can possibly do. (PT) / /
JAZZ VOCAL STARTS HERE. NO CONTEST.
Louis not only liberated the solo horn from the
New Orleans ensemble, but set popular singing '^fifyi'-^M^.. f
on a course that owed little or nothing to
Chaka Khan
Europe. He distorted metre, deconstructed
words into syllables, and made records that sim Aretha Franklin
Tina Turner
ply ached with the joy of mak Brian McKnight
ing music. His 1925 record Mica Paris
D'Angelo
Gladys Knight
Mary J. Blige
** Siedah Garrett
KC from Jodeci
"To me all these singers deliver
vocals from the soul. I'm also a big fan of female
singers with husky kind of voices."
ing of Heebie Jeebics put scat on the map. He
abused his vocal cords to spare his lip with the
result that his voice became increasingly gravelly.
Although he inspired surprisingly few imitators,
all who came later understood the freedoms he'd
Satchmo: x handed them. Jazz critic Leonard Feather
distorted V ' remarked, "Americans, unknowingly, live part of
metre, decon
every day in the house that Satch built." (CE)
structed words -
and played a little Born: August 4, 1901
Died: July 6, 1971
trumpet too. '
Sublime moment: The 1931 version of Lazy
River, scat solo climaxing at 1.43 with "Boy am I
riffin' this evenin'!" (on numerous compilations)
Recommended: Plays W.C. HanJy (Columbia 1997)
 THE lOO GREATEST SINGERS OF ALL TIME
STEVE WINWOOD
"A unique voice, from what was
the best era of British singers."
Chris Farlowe
AFTER THIRTY-ODD YEARS OF TOP
pipesmanship, as a solo star and for The Spencer
Davis Group, Traffic and Blind Faith, the former
multi-instrumentalist teen wonderkid still self-
SMOKEY
ROBINSON
"A lovely sound. I was once up
all night with Yorkie from
Space singing along with tunes
on the Smokey box set... it made me lose
my voice!"
Cerys Matthews
JOHN SEBASTIAN RECALLS A
treasured moment of a Smokey Robinson
And The Miracles gig at New York's
Apollo in the '60s, where he stood next
to a 300-pound black woman in a vast
white polka-dot dress. "She stood up and
just swooned when he
started to sing.
es She col
lapsed right on me,
and that said it for
me." Sebastian is just
one of many who fell
under Smokey's spell,
from The Beatles to
Prince and beyond.
George Harrison
enshrined him in song
with Pure Smokey, as ABC
ad done in When Smokey
Sings The Blues. "He is
absolutely one of
those singular
i* people," said
Sebastian,
"you can't
approxi
mate
Smokey
Robinson,
you can
only listen
to him."
Singular,
swoon-making,
Smokey.
■ (Kwyet Kinks, 1965 Pye EP)
effacingly insists that on early
hits like Keep On Running he
was "impersonating Ray
Charles". Winwood denies that
suffering is essential to making
great music, but the alienated
desperation in his voice sug
gests a man swimming in emo
tional depths that would drown
most vocalists. A love of rock,
country, blues, folk, jazz and
standards enriches his
essentially soulful stvle, but it's
his master)' of understatement
that enables Winwood to reveal
hidden subtleties in every lyric he
interprets. (JB)
Born: May 12, 1948
Sublime moment: The redemptive
elation of "You know love will save
us after all", I Will Be There
(Refugees Of The Heart, Island 1990)
Recommended: Arc Of A Diver
(Island 1980)
BOB MARLEY
William Robinson grew up in a Detroit
household where great voices — Sarah 7 ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ " A g r e a t c o m m u n i c a t o r, w h o ' s
Vaughan, Nat King Cole, Billy Eckstein —
4 *7»^P so exciting to listen to."
^00^ Jacqui McShee, Pentangle
were rarely off the phonograph. At school
BORN OF THE LANGUAGE AND REALITY
he formed The Miracles who, in 19S9,
ol ghetto life in Trenchtown, Marley gave
became the first act signed to the Tamla
Jamaican music an incomparable platform in the
label, giving the upstart Motown its first '70s and '80s — and enduring influence since. Far
million-seller with Shop Around in 1961. from compromising his roots, success hardened
His astonishing fecundity as a songwriter, his ideology and gave sharp focus to his own
producer and performer is barely hinted highly personalised vision of reggae. Marley's vocal
at by mentioning his greatest hits, from style was as natural and intuitive as his writing and
and his charismatic stage performances. From
You've Really Got A Hold On Me through
Tracks Of My Tears, My Girl, Going To A gentle shanking origins (Nice Time) he acquired
stark intensity (Burnin' And Lootin') and yearning
Go Go, I Second That Emotion, Tears Of
depth (the inspirational live No Woman No Cry);
A Clown and Being Widi You.
Robinson credits his lyric-writing to by 1980 he could carry the manifesto
Redemption Song with his voice alone, against
Motown supremo Berry Gordy who "told the sparsest of backings. It was awesome. (CI)
me how to develop a basic plot line and
Born: February 6, 1945 Died: May 11, 1981
stick to it. He explained how every song
Sublime moment: Rawly bears his soul from
should be a complete story."
2.43, Redemption Song (Uprising, Island 1980)
Bob Dylan's celebrated observation
Recommended: Natty DreaJ (Island 1975)
that Smokey was America's "greatest liv
ing poet" must have gladdened the heart
of Motown's finest balladeer, but it tends RAY DAVIES
to direct attention away from Robinson's
most astonishing attribute — a voice reck
oned by experts to have contributed mea
O
Neil Finn
"A big, syrupy,
characterful
London voice."
surably to global warming. Caressed by
The Miracles' street-corner doo wop har BY SINGING LIKE AN
monising, it's a swoon-inducing falsetto Englishman while remaining credible
as a rock'n'roller, Davies stood apart from his
of the purest quality, a solo voice instantly
'60s peers. Even The Beatles and Stones drew
evoking melancholy and regret, but
vocal inspiration from American rock and soul
unmistakably strong and edged with bit
tersweet optimism. Even in his deepest machismo, but Davies's wryly camp inflections
recalled Noel Coward, drawing strength from a
despair, Smokey could never be Mr love-hate relationship with such uniquely British
Pitiful. Briefly reunited live with The
traditions as music hall, public school and stiff
Miracles at the 1997 RScB Foundation
Awards in New York, there was still no upper lippery. Thanks to his voice, The Kinks
became the first '60s band able to conjure the
noticeable diminution in the magic. (JB) romance of English place names — something
Born: February 19, 1940 Americans did as a matter of course with US
Sublime moment: The physical manifes locations. Without him, such '90s stalwarts as
tation of emotional turmoil in die falset Blur and Pulp, had they existed at all, would have
been radically different bands. (JB)
to swoop at 01.20 into Ooh Baby Baby
(on The Ultimate Collection) Born: June 21, 1944
Recommended: The Ultimate Collection Sublime moment: Davies goes for the upper
class jugular from 1.59, Well Respected Man.
(Motown 1998)
Recommended: Face To Face (Pye 1966)

MAVIS
STAPLES
"Just bury '
me with a . /,
copy of I'm i'y '
WS000 Jackie Kennedy, her spirit was crushed
Coming Home."
Marshall Crenshaw
she died alone and forgotten in Paris. (CI)
MAVIS STAPLES'S CONTRALTO WAS SO
hoarsely gravelly that her father initially made
her the Staple Singers' bass singer. It's still an
intimidatingly powerful sound, suggesting a
woman so ecstatically exhausted by the spirit
that she seems to be gasping for air and heaving
the words from her throat. If her best singing
can be heard on the Staples' great Vee Jay gospel
sides of the '50s, she was at her most
breathlessly gutsy on the group's funky Stax hits
two decades later. Everyone from Jerry Wexler
to Prince has tried to help craft the solo album
C 'dMU
flawed and famously erratic
June Tabor
technique but her range was
staggering. Her explosive singing
mirrored a tempestuous personal English music crafted
i ity and when Aristotle Onassis
ended their 10-year affair to marry
U Great singers always know
how to get inside a song.
They get right into the story and they'll
and her career nosedived. She was 5 3 when reach you even when singing in a foreign lan
guage. Timing's also important - the art of
singing is as much to do
Born: December 4, 1923 Died: September 16, with what you leave out as
1977 what you put in. Then
Sublime moment: A ferocious, spine-chilling there's the timbre of the
wailing from 4.20 In Questa Reggia (TuranJot, voice, the way it's used, and
EMI 1954) the technique... Singing was
Recommended: Vinccnzo Bellini, Norma con always a natural form of
ducted by Tullio Serafin (EMI 1960) expression for me. I discov
ered it as a kid when I had
the sheet music to Hound
JOHN Dog and knew the words to
LYDON every Cliff Richard song.
When I started singing tra

that would do justice to her vocal might; few
have caught its frantic majesty as Brian and
Eddie Holland did on the stupendous 1983 side
Love Gone Bad. (BH)
Born: 1940
Sublime moment: The breathless gulps at 3:10
on Respect Yourself (BealtituJe: Respect Yourself)
Recommended: BealtituJe: Respect Yourself
(Stax 1972)
©
"Who ditional music I listened
else more consciously to other singers and started
sang thinking more about technique, but for me
with such malev singing is still partly instinctive and partly
olence? The application.
anti-Elvis of my Singing cold in a studio is hard - that's why
generation." I recorded my last album live in the studio. I
Edwyn Collins just can't sing something over and over again
because it loses meaning and the songs are
HE'D HATE THE too important to me. I stopped singing The
comparison, but Band Played Waltzing Matilda for that reason.
like Dylan, Lydon is I finally sang it again this April - on Anzac Day
a singer who's made - and it was incredibly difficult because it's so
the best of his techni
cal short-comings and
come up trumps. His
emotional. I had to fight hard to stop
myself bursting into tears... W
rapid, forced vibrato and
loaded consonants are instantly Tntoi'fl cfauee
recognisable, while traces of his misanthropic "•"■ Dick Gaughan "A master of timing. He proves the
sneer — much copied in Britain circa 1976-'79
— can still be detected today in U.S. acts such importance of singing the words...even if you can't
understand his Scots accent."
as Green Day and the Beastie Boys. The verse '"' Gabriel Yacoub "The sheer quality of his
of Rise (from Pit's Album, Virgin 1986)
voice always sends shivers down my spine."
demonstrates how Lydon can create interest ▶ Frank Sinatra "Think of all he did with Nelson Riddle
without resorting to anything as polite as a
using the voice as a counterpoint to the instrumenta
melody, while Never MinJ tion. It's how you use it as much as the voice itself."
The Bollocks catches him *" Nusrat Fateh AM Khan "Intensity, improvisation."
at his caustic, irritating Tony Bennett "They said Sinatra sang words when
best. (JMcN) everyone else sang notes, that's also true of Bennett."
?»- Jeannie Robertson "The great Scottish traditional
Born: January 31, 1956
Sublime moment: Sid singer, so emotional and timeless in its appeal."
! Belle Stewart "Time seems suspended when she
James-esque cackle, open sings Queen Among The Heather."
ing seconds of Anarchy > Nadka Karadzhova "The Bulgarian singer with
In The U.K. (Never
Mysteres Des Voix Bulgares. When she sings you
Mind The Bollocks) feel you're being possessed by the song."
Recommended: Never *■- Andy Irvine "Andy singing As I Roved Out is one of
MinJ The Bollocks - my Desert Island Discs."
Here's The Sex Pistols Paul Brady "He goes at it head-on but it works."

MARIA CALLAS
4*00^^, "One of the most beautiful
fLs^^P voices of all time, she had a so many girl singers seem to choose"
^^00W^ tragic life but remains the nor "the simpy hearts and flowers,
most memorable diva."
floor-length dresses stuff'.
Kelli Dayton, Sneaker Pimps
Smitten, he agreed to produce The
THE MOST NOTORIOUS - Pretenders' debut Stop Your Sobbing, and her
and probably the greatest - career was launched. It's a wonderfully poised
voice that never strives for effect or mere "atti
soprano of them all, Callas "A great
wielded such passion she tude", yet pulsates with sex and a self-protec
attitude, tive edge of menace. There's a fully-formed
virtually redefined opera. and when
"She acted with her voice, personality in every note, fascinating and dan
she sings, it's the real deal." gerous. (PDN)
every note was meaning Alice Cooper
ful. .. this is what opera Born: September 7, 1951
should be," said fellow WHEN A SCEPTICAL NICK Sublime moment: Imaginations run riot at
diva Shirley Vcrrett. Lowe got a demo tape off 1.56 of Brass In Pocket (on Pretenders,
Callas's many critics Chrissie Hynde, her voice was a
WEA 1979)
claimed the American revelation: "It was fantastic," he
Greek used brazen the Recommended:: The Pretenders: The Singles
recalled, being neither the "Janis
atricality to disguise a Joplin/Maggie Bell squawk which (WEA 1987)
 THE lOO GREATEST SINGERS OF ALL TIME
BOBBY BLUE'BLAND
©
"Bobby's Two Steps is the best vocal blues
album ever recorded."
Bobby Hatfield, Righteous Brother
IF SINATRA IS THE SINGER'S SINGER, THEN BOBBY 'BLUE'
Bland is the soul man's soul man. At first it's the sheer size of the
baritone that forces you to sit up and pay attention: only when
you've become attuned to its nuances do you hear how much skill
ELIZABETH
FRASER
^^JJJjj^^V "She uses her
% jT*M voice like
^^^^^^ some mad,
heavenly instrument.
It's good to see she's
been appreciated by
Massive Attack."
Sarah Cracknell
FRASER CONFESSED
that she preferred singing a
form of incomprehensible
baby-babble to real words because of childhood
traumas — "I never felt adequate as a person on
any level." Yet the effect was magnificently
beguiling, given a voice like a giddy, hiccough
ing nightingale. "Immense and ethereal," is
how 3D of recent collaborators Massive Attack
sees her, and she has no post-punk peer for
using the voice as an extra instrument.
Inspiration, Fraser says, often comes via the
instrumentation she's embellishing, and she'll
readily improvise, but The Cocteau Twins'
increasingly pop-shaped agenda and Fraser's
increasing confidence (via therapy and mother
hood) has precipitated a more intimate,
warmer-toned, luxurious maturity. (MA)
Born: August 29, 1958
Sublime moment: the wordless, anguished cry
toward the climax of a continuously building
Pearly-Dewdrops' Drops
(Spanglemaker EP, 4AD 1984) .
Recommended: Heaven Or Las Vegas
(4AD, 1990)
58 A'\OJC
and delicacy there is in his phrasing — a skill and deli
cacy that Bland freely admits he learned from white
singers like, well, Sinatra. And therein lies the key to
the splendour of his sound, one which offsets gargled
gospel squawks with precise, refined diction. Bland's
voice, wrote novelist James Bey, is "the lion which lies
down with the lamb".
Early Memphis blues sides (Lost Lover Blues, Woke
Up Screaming) showcase Bland belting in a hard but
stylized manner. With the encouragement of Duke
arranger Joe Scott, he found the voice of his classic
early '60s singles, from the hushed, devotional I'll Take
Care Of You all the way through to 1963's Latin-pop
Call On Me. "Without Joe, I would not have been the
singer I am," he said in 1989. "In fact, I would proba
bly have gone home to Rosemark, Tennessee and given
up as a professional singer." Under Scott's direction,
Bland cut fervent, horn-blasted gospel-blues (Turn On
Your Lovelight) and chillingly beautiful "blues ballads"
(Stormy Monday Blues) — proto-soul sides as passion
ate and powerful as anything by Ray Charles or James
Brown or Sam Cooke.
The hits tapered off, but the voice was as robust as
ever: on mid-'60s singles like I'm Too Far Gone (To
Turn Around), on 1973's His California Album, on
his 198S Malaco debut Members Only. With the
1975 album Get On Down With Bobby Bland,
Bobby even showed that he could sing the country
music on which he'd been raised back in
Rosemark. (BH)
Born: January 27, 1930
Sublime moment: The cry which erupts at 2.22 in his version of
Tammy Wynette's Too Far Gone (Get On Doivn With Bobby Bland,
ABC 1975)
Recommended: Two Steps From The Blues (Duke 1961)
DAVID RUFFIN
^r^^^W "Nobody else could ever
W
^ 0^ m
VM0 w p hBroa b
s eb y l i kWe o m
h ea cdki d . "
AFTER STARTING OUT AS ANOTHER
Jackie Wilson wannabe (the pre-
Motown Action Speaks Louder Than
Words), Ruffin fronted the Temptations
for five years of increasingly intense bal
lads (My Girl, Since I Lost My Baby, I
Wish It Would Rain) and uptempo hits
(Ain't Too Proud To Beg, Beautv's Onlv
Skin Deep, I'm Losing You), before the
combination of sporadic solo success
and chronic cocaine abuse killed him. At best
(the Temps' I Could Never Love Another),
Ruffin's vocals sounded like they were about to
splinter into a thousand shards at any second.
No wonder they went to a five-lead-singers
PAUL RODGERS
o
format when they fired
him. (DW). "Free were the greatest band of
all time. He was 25 per cent of
Born: January 18,
1941 the reason why."
Died: June 1, 1991 Al Kooper
Sublime moment: SLIPPING 'N' SLITHERING AROUND AND
The standing-start behind the beat with elenched-throat urgency
leap into a heart - those silences are LOUD! - Free frontman
break falsetto that Paul Rodgers's grainy, wood-smoked vocals
climaxes the cho were so taut, so tough, so widely imitated
ruses on Ruffin's (Ronnie Van Zant and Eddie Vedder, for
1975 solo hit
two) that it's actually possible to forgive him
Walk Awav From for Bad Company, The Firm, The Law, and
Love (Who I Am) everything else he's done lately. Part of this
Recommended: comes down to Free's less-is-more songwriting
Who I Am (All Right Now, Wishing Well, Fire And Water,
(Motown 1976) et al), the rest (Little Bit Of Love is little more
than a riff, albeit a great one) comes straight
outta Rodgers's steel-belted vocal cords. (DW)
Born: December 12, 1949
Sublime moment: Whisper-to-a-scream transi
tion after the guitar solo into the final chorus of
Free's I'll Be Creepin' (Free, Island 1969)
Recommended: Molten Gold (Island 1993)
BONO
"He puts more than just tech
nique into his singing. You either
got it or you haven't."
John Power, Cast
BONO WAS ALWAYS A
religious singer, bursting
vith aspiration and inspira
tion, ideal for the wide
screen of stadium gigs
rather than murmurs of
life's little intimacies.
Inverse-evangelising a
sort of transcendent
doubt, his hoarse, nasal
voice is not a conven
tionally beautiful instru
ment yet, driven by a
genuinely questing soul,
it has achieved mighty
moments like the soaring
epiphany of frustration I Still
Haven't Found What I'm
Looking For. Moreover, past 30,
he began putting his oddly impersonal
qualities to more subtle use via his phased/dis
torted contributions to U2's electro-disco
adventures and McPhisto's fondness for nasty
insinuation. (PS)
Born: Paul Hewson, May 10, 1960
Sublime moment: Sardonic apostate prayer
"Jesus, Jesus help me" from 0.08, Wake Up
Dead Man (on Pop, Island 1997)
Recommended: The Joshua Tree
(Island 1987)
DONNY
HATHAWAY
©
"A voice like chocolate. 'Nuff
said."
Louise Rhodes, Lamb
IN COMMON WITH THE BEST SOUL
singers he had a thorough schooling in gospel -
Martha Pitts was his gran — yet subsequent
training as a music major at Howard University,
where he met future duct partner Roberta
Flack, was every bit as vital in shaping his
mature and sophisticated style. With tone and
phrasing reminiscent of a smoother Stevie
Wonder, Hathaway was a marvellous reinter-
pretcr (hear the subtle reading of Leon Russell's
A Song For You). His best known self-penned
hit, The Ghetto, was mostly a funky jam but the
greater legacy of his tragically short life was to
make emotional commitment in a warm, rich
and measured vocal style hip. (GB)
Born: October 1, 1954 Died: January 13, 1979
Sublime moment:
\ Hope, wistful then cer-
■ if§ tain, gradually rising
1 throughout Someday
We'll All Be Free (1973,
on A Donny Hathaway
Collection)
Recommended: A Donny
Hathaway Collection
(Atlantic 1990)
CARL WILSON
^0W^^. "His voice still sounds as breath-
W'TK'^V taking today as it did when I first
^0M0r heard it."
Colin Blunstone
CASUAL FANS OFTEN CAN'T DISTINGUISH
Carl Wilson's voice from big brother Brian's, but
our experts recognize and treasure the support
ive genius of Carl's contributions. A late
bloomer, God Onlv Knows was only his second
featured vocal. His leads then graced many of his
group's loftiest peaks (Good Vibrations, Darlin',
Surfs Up), but his presence elevated any
arrangement. The ultimate proof is Kokomo.
When Carl's heavenly voice comes in singing the
"get there fast and take it slow" section, he sin
gle-handedly rescues the song from
Margaritavillc and basks it in the warmth of the
Beach Boys eternal summer. (BE)
Born: December 21, 1946 Died: February 6,
1998
Sublime moment: The pure lead voice of God
Only Knows (from Pet SounJs, Capitol 1966)
Recommended: Surfs Up (Capitol 1971).
CHETBAKER
7^J^^^ "His voice is lovely - no
L.-7J J classical training or Cleo
^0m0r Laine acrobatics."
Stephen Jones, Babybird
HIS IS THE VOICE OF A DROWSY-EYED
lover. In a soft, bedroom tone, devoid of almost
any vibrato or singerly mannerisms, he lets the
Elizabeth
Fraser
Spangle Maker
Ci I enjoy singers like Neil
Tennant and John Lydon, and
there are plenty of great rap artists, so being a
great singer isn't necessarily how broad your
range is. It's more how singers let every part of
their personality come out. Like Tim Buckley,
who was good at just letting go - he'd some
times make the most primeval noises. Nina
Simone is emotionally all over the place, warts
and all. The singers I like best are unafraid -
they've taken risks their whole careers and
chosen to be true to themselves rather than
just be successful.
People tell me I had a voice at primary
school, but it took me years to truly believe it.
For ages I treated it as a transient thing - but I
must have taken it seriously because I stayed
in The Cocteau Twins. The more records we
made, the more I started to accept it and enjoy
it. Working with different people has given me
the opportunity to discover more, and stretch
myself, because I'm still not very confident.
Singing in the studio? Really sexy! And
scary. I usually write in the studio so it's totally
spontaneous, and very exciting because I don't
know what's going to happen next. I feel I'm
reaching out, in the same way that people do
when they enter a room full of strangers. You
try and open up and look for similarities so you
can connect, but without giving up your identi
ty. And it's a challenge every time, because
you could lie, or go through the motions, and
some people will buy into that. So it's a cross
between joy and pain. The harder I work, the
more honest I'm being, the bigger the pay-off,
/ ,
and I can give myself a break, because I
did it properly! (MA)
7
Bjork
Tim Buckley
Kate Bush
Judy Henske
Billie Holiday
Esther Ofarim
Edith Piaf
Nina Simone
Frank Sinatra
Les Voix
Bulgares
song do most of the work, while he follows a few
steps behind, nudging it along. Baker's later
vocal recordings, after he'd lost everything from
his mid-Western Adonis looks to his teeth, have
an unequalled world-weariness. Of his plaintive
style, he said, "If I hadn't been a trum
pet player, I don't know if I would have
arrived at singing that way." Two weeks
after recording his final album, he was
found dead outside an Amsterdam hotel.
(BdM)
Born: December 23, 1929 Died: Mav 13, 1988
Sublime moment: Autobiographical depth he
brings to lyric between 2.17-3.15, Blame It On
My Youth (Ciiet Baker Sings AnJ Plays From The
Film Let's Get Lost, RCA 1989)
Recommended: Embraceable You (Pacific
Jazz 1995)
 THE lOO GREATEST SINGERS OF ALL TIME ^
(Columbia 1998)
><^J^^ "The sweetest vocal tones I've
^>"^V>B ever heard. I flirt with Johnny
anti-rock A8cR chief Mitch Miller, Mathis
was consciously steered away from a black
sound. It worked, as Mathis shrugged off
his stillborn jazz career and went for pop.
Mathis enunciated as clearly and projected
as confidently as Sinatra, yet his dramatic
crescendos and dips sounded effortless.
Though their dads would never have admit
ted it, more baby-boomers were conceived
to Johnny's dulcet tones than to Little
Richard or Jerry Lee. (JT)
Born: September 30, 1935
Sublime moment: Wonderful!
Wonderful!, from 0.46 to 1.07. It doesn't
get any sexier than this (WonJerful!
WonJerful!, Columbia 1957)
Recommended: Ultimate Hits Collection
ROD STEWART
from '80s pop icon and professional ladies' man
to membership of the most exclusive singers'
club alongside Messrs Jagger, Plant and Bowie.
Rod's more recent career choices perhaps
weren't designed with street crcd in mind. His
voice, though, has retained its abrasive edge.
Buddy and fellow rock aristocrat Elton John
chimes in with a vote of confidence: "If I could
have any other man's voice, it would be Rod
Stewart's. Without a doubt, he has the best voice
in rock." (BF)
Born: January 10, 1945
Sublime moment: Desperation on verge of
combustibility at 2.48 on Morning Dew (Truth,
Jeff Beck Group, Epic 1968)
Recommended: Every Picture Tells A Story
(Mercury 1971)
BING
CROSBY

CD
^0000 every time I see him. It doesn't "Delicious voice. He followed
make a difference, but I do it anyway." my mum down the M4 years ago
Martha Reeves in his yellow Lamborghini, she
was in a white Hillman Imp."
IN THE GREAT 1982 FILM DINER, THE
Sarah Cracknell
lunchers are debating whose music is better
for making out to, Mathis or Sinatra. It's STEWART'S ONE-OFF
not a question of black vs white, simply sweet sandpaper vocal
one of style. "People were surprised cords have guided his
when they saw me," Johnny Mathis once career from '60s British
remarked. "They thought I was white." blues belter with Jeff
Not by accident did he sound that way. Beck to good-time
Guided by Columbia's authoritarian, Charlie with the Faces;
"From another era,
but a master all
the same."
Huey Lewis
HE TAUGHT POP HOW TO BE
intimate with those new-fangled
microphones, then fell into Sinatra's shadow
because he lacked the capacity of his rival (and,
often, dynamic duet partner) to express dark
experience and pain. But he had his own self-
deprecating cool. Once Crosby got his break with
Paul Whiteman's dance band in the '20s, his

HOWLIN WOLF neers Charley Patton and Robert Johnson. The moment he heard
the Wolf sing, though, Phillips knew that history beckoned them
"If a DC3 could sing.

<3> Robyn Hitchcock

HIS VOICE SPANS AMERICA, REACHING BACK TO THE
1900s and the dark croak of Charley Patton, and forward to the cul
tural cut-ups of Beck Hanson and his Silverlake compadres. His
sound was a raucous echo from Africa; his electric delivery placed
him firmly in the century of mass communications and space travel.
When Wolf was ushered into the Memphis Recording Service by
local fixer Ike Turner in 1951, future Sun king Sam Phillips knew
nothing of the imposing figure's apprenticeship with Delta pio
both. Twenty one seconds into debut disc Moanin' At Midnight,
the Wolf unleashed a howl which must have convinced unsuspect
ing radio listeners that they'd tuned into a broadcast from Venus.
It propelled him instantly into the ranks of the blues greats.
In '50s America, the shock of Wolf's voice was profound. Two
hundred years of European music had established the clean, pure
sound of the flute or the boy soprano as a cultural norm. But he
was born with a fuzz box in his larynx. Chess engineer Ron Malo
memorably recalled his first Wolf vocal session, when he was
convinced that the main studio microphone had blown a valve.
After replacing the mic, he asked house bassist and songwriter
Willie Dixon to run through the song.
Dixon's mellow tones came through perfectly.
When Wolf tried it, the rasping, crunchy
distortion returned.
Primeval as Wolf's voice seemed, he could
coax varying degrees of light and shade out of
it. Sometimes he'd force it into pure distortion,
the melody just a shadow flickering within the
white noise. The overtones within a single note
were so strong he could flip up an octave just
by flexing his throat muscles. Then there was
the howl, a clean but spooky wail that leapt out
like car headlamps from a dense fog. Wolf used
the finest musicians available, but despite the
inspired presence of Hubert Sumlin, Freddie
King and others summoning up a rude, funky
electrified maelstrom, it is that huge voice that
fills up the entire soundstage. No engineer or
producer, faced with that supernatural sound,
could pull the fader down on it. (PT)
Born: Chester Burnett, June 10, 1910
Died: January 10, 1976
Sublime moment: The first howl, 0.20-025,
Moanin' At Midnight (Chess single 1951)
Recommended: His Best (MCA 1997)
easeful baritone swept aside milquetoast war
bling contemporaries with its mastery of under
stated romance (Moonlight Becomes You), suave
comedy (Straight Down The Middle) and
instinctive motorvating swing (Now You Has
Jazz) - in the latter regard, Peggy Lee is his only
peer, young Blue Eyes but a game toiler by com
parison. (PS)
Born: May 2, 1903
Died: October 14, 1977
Sublime moment: Now You Has Jazz, at 4.07
— "Bowm-bowm-bowm-bowm-bowm-badabad-
aba-ba/Now that's jazz!" (High Society sound
track, with Sinatra and Satchmo)
Recommended: High Society (Capitol 1956)
MUDDY WATERS
"The Big Daddy of Chicago."
Robbie Robertson
MUDDY WATERS WAS THE PERSONIFICA-
tion of country blues moving to the city. In his
voice, it was possible to hear the rich, loamy
Mississippi delta soil, the dark Delta nights, and
the longing for a better and fairer life on earth.
His voice began deep in his soul, blustered in his
farmer's body, then took final shape in his face,
which he twisted, contorted, and
shook to achieve the exact
forceful impact he desired.
"What you're doing on
i your face will change the
■» tone of your voice," he
once said. "That's where
my tone is." (RG)
Born: McKinley
Morganfield April 4,
1915
Died: April 30, 1983
Sublime moment:
Mannish Boy, the 1977
version. Even more
powerful than the song's
strong-as-a-mule vocal is
its moaning introduction,
0.00-030 (HarJ Again)
Recommended: HarJ Again
(Blue Sky/Columbia 1977)
BRIAN WILSON
© "A living American treasure.'
Van Dyke Parks
IF EVER A LARYNX WERE KISSED BY AN
angel, it was surely Brian Wilson's. High and clear
as a choirboy's, his voice weaved joyous threads of
silver and gold through the choruses of Beach
Boys hits like Fun Fun Fun and I Get Around, but
really came into its own when employed on more
introspective material such as Surfer Girl, In My
Room and Please Let Me Wonder. Rarely has a
male voice evinced such vulnerability and tender
ness as on the rite-of-passage classic
Pet SounJs, where Brian's increasing
reclusion spurred him to develop the
kind of sophisticated vocal arrangements
tiiat only a voice as disciplined as his
could handle: dius did Caroline No become
the first Brian Wilson solo record. (AG)
Born: June 20, 1942
Sublime moment: The final, heartbreaking]
ignation of Caroline No (Pet Sounds)
Recommended album: Pet SounJs
(Capitol 1966)
ICCY POP
"A voice that will cut through
<2> | anything."
Mark Eitzel
ASK THE IG IF HE WAS ONCE INDEBTED
to Mick Jagger and Jim Morrison, and he not
only agrees but suggests the influence was so
obvious "you coulda called me Jim Jagger. Or
Mick Morrison." The 1970 sessions for The
Stooges' Fun House unlocked his vocal cords,
thanks to producer Don Gallucci's suggestion he
sing live through a PA as the backing tracks went
down. Since then, he's extended his range to
accommodate exuberant swagger (Lust For Life),
affectionate reassurance (China Girl) and louche-
goofing (Did You Evah's duct with Debbie
Harry). No sign yet, though, whether he'll take
up a standing invitation from reputed avant-
gardist Robert Ashley to work as an operatic
baritone. (PT)
Born: James Ostcrberg, April 21, 1947
Sublime moment: die swinging, closing
improvisation of Success, "here comes my
Chinese rug..." (Lust For Life)
Recommended: Lust For Life (RCA 1977)
LUCIANO
PAVAROTTI
CD
"Stunning, both for technique
and emotion."
Tony Bennett
AS THE PAV WILL INFORM ANYONE WHO
asks him, the tenor voice is not a natural sort of
noise at all. It's really an artificial construct that
the practitioner must remake each day. His
throat swathed and swaddled, he lives in con-
Rod Stewart
Tousled hair, tousled
voice
Two or three things make a great
singer. First it's distinction - when
you hear that voice you know who it is.
Secondly, phrasing is very important. And last, I
always remember when I first listened to Otis
Redding it was almost like the guy was in the
room singing for me and me alone. And that's
the hallmark of a great singer.
My voice was something I
worked on because I had to.
I joined John Baldry's band
when I was 19 and was
thrown in at the deep end
doing seven gigs a week
every night in colleges. So
your vocal chords - like the
muscles in your legs -
become more hardened and
more powerful. Which is
what a lot of bands don't
do now, they don't do that
kind of apprenticeship.
Singing's like any art form:
the more you do it, the
more you should be getting better as you get
older. And I'm lucky, my voice is just getting
stronger and stronger. Also I don't smoke and I
think that's got a lot to do with it. And I go
through a hell of a warm-up before I sing, a
good hour, I go through scales and then I'll
spray it. Then I sing I Don't Want To Talk About
It 'cos its the lowest song I sing, then maybe
Baby Jane 'cos it's the highest. Then a rum and
coke and I hit the stage. One of the biggest
lessons I learnt for recording was learning the
lyrics and not reading them off a sheet, so you
can close your eyes and play with them. It makes
such a difference. Recording can be an intimi
dating affair, but at the end of the day it's
the most important thing, the fairy on ••
top of the Christmas tree, darling! (ME) / /
**£* date
Sam Cooke "Everything you think you love about
him I love too, the obvious things."
•* Otis Redding
*• Terence Trent D'Arby "One of the greatest singers
ever. Fantastic. Tremendous. He's everything I'd
like to be."
Paddy McAloon "I'm a big Prefab Sprout fan."
Skin from Skunk Anansie "Fabulous."
-1 Muddy Waters "Him, Sam and Otis were really
my main influences."
< Arthur Conley
*■ Eddie Cochran
*■ Ella Fitzgerald
Al Jolson
stant fear of losing this mysteri
ous force inside of him. Watch
him in close-up, and he looks
amazed by die sound coming
out of his mouth. They don't
call him King Of The High Cs
any more, but he's still the
bridge between high art and
popular culture. Truly, it's not
over until the fat bloke sings. (PDN)
Born: October 12, 1935
Sublime moment: II Maestro's majestic
entrance at 2.53 of Miss Sarajevo (Passengers:
Original SounJtracks 1, Island 1995)
Recommended: The Ultimate Collection
(Deco 1998)
 THE lOO GREATEST SIN6ERS OF ALL TIME
TIM BUCKLEY
o
soared and dived above inti
Had the intelligence mate, languid settings of dou
Buckley: ble bass, jazz guitar, vibes and
and ability to let go
singing's
enough - for the lis David his own trademark acoustic
tener, this gives a shared intimacy." Livingstone 12-string. Happy Sad, Blue
Eddi Reader
Afternoon (Straight, 1970) and
"THERE IS NO NAME YET FOR THE the posthumous live outings
Dream Letter (Demon, 1990)
places he and his voice can go," the critic
Lillian Roxon once famously noted of the and Lire At The Troubadour
1969 (Edsel, 1994) reveal
extravagantly
,0/0 gifted Tim Bucklev.j She was
Buckley's gifts at their most
right: reputedly spanning four or five octaves,
warmly expansive, but his con
Buckley's was a voice to caress the soul, an
instrument that could search out the most stant probing of stylistic limits
took him into the hitherto
inaccessible of emotional locations, swooping
uncharted regions of the
(rom piercing high-register to knee-weaken
Coltrane-influenced Starsailor
ing basso profundo in the space between a
(Straight, 1971).
syllable. Through an idiosyncratic vocabulary The multi-tracked,
of moans and wails, Buckley etched the con
tours of amorous dislocation with a some varispeeded vocal montage of
that album's title track still has
times ]3erverse passion: his Greetings From LA
no serious equivalent in popu
(Warners, 1972), derided as "rock pornogra- lar music, but the blaring
phv" by some, was the frankest assessment
thus far of the carnal enslavement which rock atonality of the arrangements
elsewhere on the album dis
music routinely claims as its own, a desperate
suaded listeners from taking it
ecstasy without release. to their hearts. Disillusioned,
Buckley came out of the mid-'60s folk
Buckley gave up music for a while; though when he did record
boom, but gravitated towards avant-garde jazz, a move which
afforded him unprecedented experimental space, but also effec again, he retained his aptitude for casual brilliance. (AG)
Born: February 14, 1947 Died: June 29, 197S.
tively crippled his career commercially. He was extraordinarily
Sublime moment: The dizzy, spiralling muezzin wail with which
precocious: with his second album, Goodbye And Hello, he all but
exhausted the possibilities of folk rock with lyric structures and he announces "and soon now I'll fly", 3.53 into I Never Asked To
musical arrangements that bordered on the baroque; he quickly Be Your Mountain (Goodbye And Hello, Elektra 1967)
moved on to develop a unique folk-jazz hybrid in which his voice Recommended: Floppy Sad (Elektra 1969)

BONNIE RAITT blues influence. Hers was a fiery, physical, even

sexy approach, which effectively redefined gospel
^ 0 W P ^ " Ve r y p r o f e s s i o n a l . Ve r y through her enormous contralto range and her
f T*m cute."
eagerness to challenge its limits. She switched
^^000r Gary Brooker
unblinkinglv from a stunningly stark Lord's
HONEST TO THE BONE, RAITT Praver to a roof-raising jazzy When The
Saints Go Marching In. "I'm a mood
grew up with a passion for the
blues, took African studies at uni singer, I sing by feeling," she said,
and howl Her close friend Aretha
vcrsity, then learnt her music
direct from veterans John Flurt Franklin sans; Precious Lord at her
and Sippie Wallace. She sang funeral. (CI)
with unmatched warmth, one of Born: October 26, 1911
the rare white vocalists who Died: January 27, 1972
escaped the delusion that R&B
demands a throat-ripping
Sublime moment:
DIONNE WARWICK
Encapsulating the world's grief
endeavour to sound black. She with a profoundlv touching ren "^P^^ "She personifies the Bacharach-
gave understated weight to melan dition of Precious Lord at Martin ^, y>B David sound. She knows about
^00^^ understatement, never resorting
choly, strutted the very essence of Luther King's funeral.
sass on her saltier material. Her first to histrionics like today's divas."
Recommended: The World's Greatest
few albums remain her best, but that loving Edwyn Collins
Gospel Singer (Columbia 1954)
embrace of a voice was still the key when she DIONNE WARWICK'S WAS THE DEFIN-
finally started selling millions with Nick Of Time ing voice of cabaret soul, and the perfect vehi
in 1989. (PS) cle for the brilliant MOR-pop of Bacharach and
Born: Novembers, 1949 David. Despite her apprenticeship with New
Sublime moment: Her rueful dignity contra Jersey gospel group the Drinkard Singers, she
was far from churchy. In fact, what appealed to
dicting the literal meaning of Eric Kaz's ballad
Love Has No Pride (Give It Up) Bacharach was precisely her Caucasian timbre,
Recommended: Give It Up (Warner Bros 1972) its chiselled detachment — along, naturally, with
her remarkable ability to meet the vocal
demands his songs made. "You've practically
MAHALIA JACKSON ■ got to be a music major to sing Bacharach,"
"The Queen Mother of gospel Warwick has said, and logging the constant

<3> music."
Robbie Robertson
time-changes in a song such as Promises,
Promises obliges one to agree. (BH)
Born: December 12, 1940
BESSIE SMITH'S SPIRITUAL DAUGHTER,
she proved The Devil JiJn 't have all the best Sublime Walk On By, Warwick and backing
tunes. She was gospel's biggest, brassiest and singers break into the long "Walk on" at 1.42.
most compelling voice, but living in New Orleans Recommended: The Sensitive SounJ Of Dionne
in the '20s and '30s ensured a strong jazz and Warwick (Scepter 1965)
 ?> ir-
GLADYS KNIGHT Baal's Hymn EP, every new outing
Shania Twain
layers fresh inflection onto old —
Af0WP^± "The greatest soul singer ever. though this constant evolvcment has All mod country girl
wh t^ J Really sweet face, really mega backfired on occasion. The Berlin
^ ^ ^■^ ^ v o i c e . " exile's Stage live album failed to recreate 77 For me, great singing is about
Shania Twain Aladdin Seine's glories; the Let's Dance 'Hi musical ability first. They
crooner demolished the Thin White Duke have to be good musically otherwise I
OF THE TWO MAIN KINDS OF HIT won't listen to them, no matter how intense,
makers at Motown in the '60s — those who were material; indeed, Bowie is one of the few artists but I'd still appreciate a technical singer who
who has to remodel old songs to fit new voices
processed by the hit-making machinery and — most people work the other way round. But had no feeling at all.
those who tran I was probably three or four years old when I
the true mark of his genius is that Anthony
scended it — Knight started to experiment with my voice. When I
was eminent Newley could never sing Cat People. Bowie was six I started singing. Doing covers, my voice
among the latter. sings both. (DT) took on the characteristics of the singer I was
Born: January 8, 1947
Her pre-Motown copying, singing as close to the original singer
R&B hits remain Sublime moment: 4.13 into Young Americans as possible - phrasing, pronouncing, breathing
the line, "Ain't there one damn song that can like that artist - and not putting any of my own
deservedly prized make me break down and cry?", shows off a
tor her no-holds- feeling into it. It was
barred gospel vocal with 0-60 acceleration of two seconds in my own music,
(Young Americans, EMI 1975) when I started to write
shouting. Then at Recommended: Hunky Dory (EMI 1971) in my late teens, that I
Motown subsidiary discovered that I had
Soul, gritty smashes
like I Heard It my own style, the way

Through The TINA TURNER I would sing if I wasn't

Grapevine showed
that Knight's indi
vidual spirit could
not be trampled
underfoot. At
Buddah in the mid-'70s she evolved into a
vocalist of dazzling diversity, able to soar over
dance grooves as easily as she climbed right
inside tender heartbreakers like Midnight
Train To Georgia. (JB)
Born: May 28, 1944
Sublime moment: The numb resigna
tion of the line, "There can be no way",
before the soaring final chorus of
Neither One Of Us (The Ultimate
Collection)
Recommended: The Ultimate Collection
(Motown 1998)
DAVID BOWIE
"Low, dark, really intense."
\m£0W Joey Ramone
COCKNEY SPACEMAN, SOULBOY
mechanoid, Bowie's wardrobe overflows with
discarded aliases, but his voicebox retains a
taste of every one. From the alluring chirp of
Hunky Dory to the sonorous dissolution of the
"A warrior. She remains positive
in the face of adversity."
v-'l»jy
Paula Cole
TURNER'S BIGGEST RECORDS RARELY
coincide with her finest moments. A
curate's egg vocal on River Deep,
Mountain High is transformed
by Phil Spector's production
and arrangement while,
conversely, We Don't Need
Another Hero and The Best
arc triumphs of a mature
performer over mediocre
material. When Annie Mae
Bullock grabbed the rnic
from Ike Turner's drummer
at St. Louis's Club Manhattan
in 1956, she was a gutsy, soul
shouter. As Tina Turner, how
ever, she evolved over three
decades into one of the most
sophisticated interpreters on the
planet, capable of animal frenzy, girlish
vulnerability and overt sexual aggression, often
in the same line. (JB)
Born: November 26, 1939
Sublime moment: The perfectly judged balance
of vulnerability and cynicism, from 2.41, on the
early '80s power ballad What's Love Got
To Do With It (Private Dancer)
Recommended: Private Dancer
(Capitol 1984)
influenced by another
singer. I usually
decide how I'm gonna
sing it while I'm writ
ing it: that determines
the melody and the
phrasing, the singing
of the song itself, if it
has a sexy or a sweeter edge. Power singing I
do live now and then, but when I'm recording I
want to hear the intimate side of my voice, as if
I was singing in someone's ear.
Now that I record my own music, I find that
it's the writer that dictates how I want it to be
heard. It would be much more difficult for me to
do covers now; I would probably take another
artist's song and change it to suit my A 0\
style rather than sing exactly like it. (MS) //
lumm a cltflke
Gladys Knight
Karen Carpenter "Soothing, smooth and perfect."
Elton John" A very masculine voice."
~ Bonnie Raitt "Very salty, in complete control."
• Mariah Carey "One of my favourite pop singers,
one of the best in her generation."
Stevie Wonder "A great R&B singer, lots of soul."
Joan Osborne "An amazing singer, like a Janis
Joplin. I get totally lost in her voice."
Stevie Nicks "So believable and real."
Toni Braxton
Lauryn Hill "In this generation that kind of voice
just doesn't exist."

SARAH
VA U 6 H A N were peppered with swoops, flights of filigree
^ S * y ^ ^ " M y fi r s t i n fl u e n c e . " fancy and embellishments that didn't need to
be made. But when Sarah made them, they
sounded just right. Not bad for a singer who
SASSY - THE DIVINE SARAH. THE
smoked, downed gin with alacrity and took
possessor of the most remarkable voice in
enough drugs to make her forget the pain of
jazzdom. Fler range was operatic — except her three failed marriages. (FD)
that no opera star ever " Born: March 27, 1924
started out with Earl
Hines's big band, and Died: April 3, 1990
then moved on to work Sublime moment: A
with bebop's giants take-you-by surprise
(Charlie Parker, Dizzy range-switch at 1.07
on They Can't Take
Gillespie) before mak
That Away From Me
ing it on her own.
She'd hit the lowest of (Swingin' Easy, EmArcy
notes, then soar imme 1957)
diately to some place Recommended: Sarah
\
just out of heaven's Vaughan With Clifford
reach. And do it with Brown (EmArcy
IU- nch vocals 1954)

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DINAH WASHINGTON
/*^^^W "The way she sings Mad About
j^>» The Boy makes me want to
^ 0 0 0 ^ s c r e a m w i t h e c s t a c y. "
Kelli Dayton, Sneaker Pimps
BILLIE HOLIDAY WITH BAD ATTITUDE,
Dinah segued effortlessly from
pop to jazz to blues ("Just bring
me the bitch who can do what I
do, and do it as well," she
reportedly bragged). Her voice
was vinegary, best-suited to
blues, her phrasing exquisite.
Strings suited her voice — sweet
and sour go well together.
Dinah's biggest hit, 1959's
string-laden What A Difference
A Day Makes, set the course for
her few remaining years. Her
earlier sides as self-proclaimed
Queen Of The Jukeboxes are
mostly take-charge blues.
Unaccountably, jazz fans see her
as too crass; blues fans as too
jazzy. (CE)
Born: August 29, 1924
Died: December 14, 1963
Sublime moment: The unbridled salaciousness
of Short John, climaxing(!) with "Wham, doc
tor, ooh doctor" (2.25)(Tne Best Of)
Recommended: The Best Of (Mercury 1987)
TONY BENNETT
"He's still showing us all how
<2> it's done."
Tommy Scott, Space
RAISED ON OPERA, THOUGH ENTHUSED
by the pure showmanship of vaudevillians like
Al Jolson and Eddie Cantor, Bennett became a
jazz junkie, tuning into Billie Holiday, piano
legend Art Tatum and tcnorist Al Cohn.
Everything filtered through. There emerged a
voice, coarse, grainy, yet somehow super-
sophisticated, which would be honed to perfec
tion over years of incessant touring and con
stant attention to detail. Tony still occasionally
yearns for the 60-piecc orchestra or booting big
band. Yet it's in smaller settings that h<
really weaves spells, kicking a light jazz Tony Bennett: musical
path with combos headed by Art method man.
Blakey or Ralph Sharon, or maybe
working solo with the late Bill Evans.
Amazingly, he gets better with every
passing year. (FD)
Born: August 3, 1926
Sublime moment: Mamselle, total sen
sitivity, flawless delivery (Tony Sings For
Two, Columbia 1960)
Recommended: The Bill Evans Album
(Riverside 1960)
NUSRAT
FATEH
ALI KHAN
S^^^^^ "The most inspir-
•U»j[ B '"9 voice I have ever
^000* heard."
Yungchen Lhamo
BORN IN FAISALABAD, NUSRAT'S
immersion in the family's qawwali tradi
tions was absolute, but the emotional
range of his voice soared far beyond
Sufism to touch souls everywhere. "Part
demon, part mad angel, his voice is velvet
fire," said Jeff Buckley; his technique led him to
ground-breaking collaborations with Peter
Gabriel, Michael Brook and Massive Attack, who
remixed him to the forefront of the new Asian
dance movement. He died suddenly last year,
but die hypnotic strength of Shahen-Shah will no
doubt influence generations to come. (CI)
Born: October 13, 1948 Died: August 16, 1997
Sublime moment: Mindblowing scat singing on
his Michael Brook collaboration, Sweet Pain
(Night Song, Real World 1996)
Recommended: Mustt Mustt (Real World 1991)
LITTLE WILLIE JOHN
'His controlled emotion makes
R&B singing look easy."
Scott Morgan, Rationals
LITTLE WILLIE JOHN, LIKE SAM COOKE,
was a soul singer before soul singers existed.
Willie was young and a borderline wacko, but
his voice had maturity way beyond his tender
years. He phrased like a gospel singer, lingering
over syllables, unexpectedly underscoring a
word with an emotive rasp or a thrilling flash of
falsetto. Almost no-one else was doing this in
1956 when Willie broke through with Fever.
Twelve 12 years later, when everyone was doing
it, Little Willie died in jail. "The very nice
artists don't make it,"
said his producer •
Henry Glover. "Willie
John was a headache
[but] no one living
then could touch
him." (CE)
Born: November 13,
1937
Died: May 26, 1968
Sublime moment: My
Baby's In Love With
Another Guy (King
45). Willie emotes
Tony Bennett
Glastonbury swing king
77 There are no rules carved in
wW stone, but I really believe
family upbringing has a lot to do with a
great voice. The Welsh, the Italians, they've
had the artform so long that even if they can't
sing, they have an instinctive understanding.
They become experts automatically just from
their genes. It's the terrain that you live in, the
culture. In Italy we're blessed with Italian opera;
the Welsh have these choral voices that make
your skin go into goosebumps.
My whole life I never questioned the fact I
had to sing, and I sang
on a daily basis through
my whole life, it's just a
mission I've been blessed
with - to sing for the rest
of my life.
You have to be pre
pared before you go and
capture a song in the
studio; work out the key,
the concept, really
thinking and packaging
and performing before
you get in there. So by
the time you get in, you
just do it. What I try to
do is find songs that
have images that tell
stories; I'm like a musical storyteller. So in that
sense it becomes kind of method.
You still have to think ahead, about those
next four bars, and you definitely have to be in
shape, on top of your voice to have that con
trol and vitality. Years ago if you sang around
the perimeter of the bullseye it was OK. Today
you have to hit the dead centre of the bullseye.
When you do that and it's successful, A A
it becomes timeless. (PT) //
' Frank Sinatra
i> - Ella Fitzgerald
>- Sarah Vaughan
o- Peggy Lee "Sounds great to this day."
Jeri Southern
>** Dinah Washington
•▶Jimmy Rushing "Like a gypsy playing violin, he was
just as good as any schooled artist. A great blues
singer, and his work with Count Basie was inspired."
* Pavarotti
s* DiStefano
! Caruso "That's real singing. You're not gonna get it
any better than that."
V
brilliantlly on "I broke right down and cried"
(0.35)
Recommended: The Best Of (Rhino-King)
 THE 100 GREATEST SINGERS OF ALL TIME ^
PATSY CLINE
^00*^. "It's her purity of voice I love.
^/JL"*™ There's something unearthly
^^000^ about hearing a beautiful,
sweet tone that's unadulterated."
Neil Finn
PATSY CHANGED EVERYTHING. SHE
arrived in Nashville from Virginia armed
with a voice of aching melancholy which
rapidly challenged Kitty Wells's position
as undisputed queen of country music,
and a feistv attitude that airily demolished
the Grand Ole Opry's long-entrenched
male dominance. A tomboyish oddball
among Nashville's good and glamorous,
she sang with such clarity and natural
emotion that she cut through the usual
mixture of gloss and tack)' hillbilly
imagery emanating from the Ryman
Auditorium and became country's first
crossover star. It's hard to imagine a pop
world embracing emergent greats like
Loretta'n'Dolly'n'Tammy'n'Emmylou
quite so readily without Patsy being there
first. Dottie West readily admits being
directly inspired by seeing Cline. "She
was sensational. She had charisma the
equal of Elvis and Johnny Cash and when
she sang a real tearjerking ballad and
you'd see her crying, she wasn't faking.
Nobody sang the blues like Patsy."
Like all genuine groundbreakers, Patsy
divided opinion, disturbing the cosy
status quo with ribald manners, disdain
EVERLY
BROTHERS
£>
"The best harmo
ny I ever heard."
Ron Dante
RAISED AS COUNTRY SINGERS
by their radio star father, Don
and Phil Everly sang as hard as
any rock'n'roller, but did it with
the immaculate harmony that
only siblings can pull off The
combination gave their hits not
Patsy: the voice of an
angel afflicted by
alcohol, nervous
breakdowns and car
crashes.
for protocol and a penchant for singing
blues, gospel, rock'n'roll and jazz
material. Many serious Cline-ophiles still
claim her best performance was the jazz
standard Bill Bailey, Won't You Please
Come Home. Her first hit Walkin' After
Midnight, in 1957, was a blues number in
all but arrangement. It was the tragedy in
her voice — invoked, Dottie West believes,
by the tragedies in her own life — which
remained her hallmark. She was seven
months pregnant when in 1961 she cut
her classic I Fall To Pieces. Delivered with
such quivering inner turmoil, it was as if
she'd just seen a video of the rest of her
life. Wilful, loud-mouthed, hard-drink
ing, foul-mouthed, plagued by illness, she
endured a tempestuous marriage, had a
nervous breakdown and fought numerous
demons within and without. While 1 Fall
To Pieces was still charting she was seri
ously hurt in a car crash; yet she was back
in the studio on crutches within months
for her definitive recording of Willie
Nelson's Crazy. Eighteen months later she
died in a Tennessee plane wreck. But her
voice survives... (CI)
Born: September 8, 1932
Died: March 5, 1963
Sublime moment: A yodel to die for
from 2.09 on Lovesick Blues
(Sentimentally Yours, Decca 1962)
Recommended: The Patsy Cline Collection
(Decca 1991)
just power but a yearning
intimacy that remains
unmatched. In the '50s,
only the Everlys sounded
like the Everlys. By the
'60s, you could hear
the influence of
their unique voca.
cadences in The
Beatles, The
Byrds, and
Simon & /
Garfunkel. I
Still, in the '90s, bands as diverse as Teenage
Fanclub and The Javhawks have clearly sipped
from the Everlys' pool of vocal harmony. (JB)
Born: February 1, 1937 (Don), January 19,
1939 (Phil)
Sublime moment: Cathy's Clown, 0.08: Don
improvises a melismatic slide around the word
"love" as Phil holds the original harmony (Walk
Right Back)
Recommended: Walk Right Back (Warner
Archives 1996)
DUSTY
SPRINGFIELD
© "One of the most
beautiful and
soulful voices -
listen to her sing If You Go
Away, and weep."
Colin Blunstone
IT WAS CLIFF RICHARD
who first called Dusty "the white
Negress", in an awkward attempt
to praise the sensuous force of
her voice. But as her producer in
Memphis, Jerry Wexler, has
noted, "you won't hear much of
a black intonation in her voice". Since her begin
nings in The Springfields, in fact, Dusty has
moved through folk-pop, mascara-blinded bal
lads and the funkiest R&B, maintaining a tone
that's all her own. Her taste in songwriters, from
Bacharach down, was pretty faultless, too. "She's
deeply soulful," says Wexler. "As with Aretha, I
never heard her sing a bad note." (PDN)
Born: Mary O'Brien, April 16, 1939
Sublime moment: The diva's imperious return
to the hit parade at 1.36 on What Have I Done
To Deserve This? (1987 Pet Shop Boys single,
on Goin' Back)
Recommended: Coin' Back: The Very Best Of
(Philips 1994)
MICK JAGGER
,^^^^^^ "I've always loved Jagger's voice,
M I t^B but never analysed why. I guess
^^■•^^ 'cos it's so loose and sexy."
Joan Jett
JAGGER IS A GREAT PRESENTATION, AND
the Mick Jagger show is most invisible when
he's a southern black singer, strutting the
stage like a colt, a satyr, a banty rooster. The
band are his cronies, it's Saturday and they're
playing the home crowd. The bar holds all of
us, we're near the stage, but with enough
shoulder room. Smoking is allowed. Do you
doubt Mick Jagger when he
sings: "I met a gin-
soaked bar-room
queen in Memphis."
He earns the story
teller's triumph, an
audience shouting,
"Tell it Mick, tell
it!" (RG)
Born: July 26,
1943
Sublime moment:
A controlled change
of pace on Midnight
Rambler (Let It
Bleed, Deca 1969)
Recommended:
Sticky Fingers (Rolling
Stones 1971)
 pm
O %

Famous Flames started as the Gospel

Flames, and the sources of many of
James's trademarked mannerisms can
be found in the works of Alex
Bradford, Claude Jeter, and other sacred
shouters; James just took their ideas fur
ther and redefined the idea of What soul-singing
could be. Actually, he redefined what the voice
and the body were capable of. Aaow! FInh! (EW)
Born: May 3, 1933
Sublime moment: I Got You (I Feel Good)
(King single, 1965)
Recommended: Live At The Apollo
Shirley Manson
Garbage chanteuse
U T h esingers
b e s tsound
like it's the sound of the
animal, rather than it's the
sound of the human being. You
can't train a great singer, and I
don't think it's anything to do
with technique; I think a great
singer is someone who commu
nicates emotion. There are peo

ALCREEN (Polydor 1963) ple whose singing I love who

have fantastic control and technique - but it's
"Oh what a feeling - so sweet!"

<2> Gabby Glaser,

Luscious Jackson
LIKE A SONGBIRD, LIKE A MATING CALL,
like the sound of sunset, Al Green's voice is a
natural beauty. One of the eight wonders of the
world, he can soar, glide, moan, and growl —
though in Al's world of soul, the soft love moan
achieves whatever the growl would desire. He is
the voice of holy lust and love, ethereal, sexy-,
never trashy. For the first half of the 1970s, after
Memphis soul peaked, Al extended the music's
life. Working at Hi Records with producer
Willie Mitchell, they softened the bump and
grind, emphasising the music's sensual curves.
Twenty-five years later, it's still more effective
than candlelight and wine. (RG)
Born: April 13, 1946
Sublime moment: Animalistic moaning, 2.17,
Simply Beautiful (I'm Still In Love With You)
Recommended: I'm Still In Love With You
(Hi/EMI 1972)
JAMES BROWN
/■"^^^^ "It's impossible to say in a few
V X W words the power and influence
^^000^' of this man, and the effect he's
had on music."
Paul Rodgers
GRUNT, SCREAM, WHEEZE, HICCUP...
hut sing? The voice sounds sandpapered at the
best ol times, not least because many JB classics
were recorded directly after shows. But the
JACKIE WILSON
"Could have been an opera
invisible, you notice the emotion rather than the
technical skill.
I've sung since I was four, in choirs, around
the house, but I didn't think of myself as a singer
singer.
until someone else reacted to it. I know I can
Bobby Hatfield, Righteous hold a tune, as they say. I wouldn't really
Brother consider myself a vocalist as such. When the
WITH HIS GLASS-SHATTERING men in Garbage approached me I thought, well I
falsetto, gospel-drenched phras must have something, it began then. That's
when I started to develop confidence, and my
ing, and ability to juggle
octaves within the space of voice developed. A lot of it's down to confi
dence. If you don't have confidence in your own
a single word, Wilson was
more than a spectacular voice, it's not going to project to other people.
In the studio, I think essentially you have to be
R&B/soul singer (Lonely
in the right frame of mind; some kind of agi
Teardrops, Baby tated state, high, up, or low, really sad, or
Workout, Higher And
angry. It's usually best for me if I'm in some
Higher), recording kind of state. When I sing it's usually 'cos the
scorching rockers (I'll Be people around me can tell I'm in the mood. I
Satisfied), torchy blues usually record at night, my voice doesn't sound
(Doggin' Around), tran g o o d d u r i n g t h e d a y. N o b r i g h t A l
scriptions of arias (Night), lights, I like to sing in the dark. (PT) / /
hoary pop standards (Danny
Boy), and endless amounts of i
absolute crap, all powder-puff choruses and \ M i f t v D Yfi lib a i f > 0
soapy strings. Caught between the supper-club
and the chitlin circuit, he influenced everyone Tina Turner "The most complete voice; raw power,
from Van Morrison to Al Green until a 1975 on and the ability to convey any kind of emotion."
stage heart attack silenced the magnificent throat Billie Holiday "Seems to be able to convey such
pain; sends shivers up my spine."
responsible for all those mind-boggling vocal
Frank Sinatra "When you pick a voice it's 'cos it
gymnastics forever. (DW)
conveys emotion. You imagine their life."
Born: June 9, 1934 Died: Jan 2 I, 1984 Nina Simone
Sublime moment: Closing cadenza of Danny John Lennon
Boy, wherein he wrings 2 3 — count 'em - notes Diana Ross "Who doesn't love Diana? She sent
out of the word "for". (The Masters, Eagle 1997) women across the world singing into their
Recommended: The Very Best Of (Ace 1997) deodorant bottles. A goddess, a real beauty."
John Lee Hooker
Chrissie Hynde "A real role model. I don't like
LITTLE RICHARD women that sound just like girls - I love men who
can sing like women, and vice versa."
7^^0^^ "Total attack - yet effortless. He
Thorn Yorke "For that same reason..."
L^JlB invented rock'n'roll."
^ ^■■^ G a r y B r o o k e r , P r o c o l H a r u m Bjork "Again, if someone's a great singer you don't
notice their technique. It has this wild abandon
THOUGH INITIALLY AN ABLE R&B SINGER ment, it sounds like there's a lack of control even
in the Wynonie Harris mould, Little Richard though the control's there."
drew on his early gospel influences to develop a
vocal style based almost exclusively on exclama
tion. Buoyed by the supercharged swing of
Bumps Blackwcll's New Orleans session
crew, he surfed the turbulent currents of
songs like Lucille and Good Golly Miss Molly
using little more than a series of hysterical
shrieks and howls; but he had the unique
ability to invest even the most nonsensical of
lyrics with something approaching compul
sion. The result was the most flamboyant
assertion of otherness in rock'n'roll, the sound
of the future exploding out of the past. (AG)
Born: Richard Penniman, December 5, 1932
Sublime moment: The
"Awopbopaloomopawophamboom" at the
start of Tutti Frutti (1956 Specialty
single), the very- birth-squeal of
rock'n'roll itself Little Richard: put
Recommended: The Specialty Sessions the bop in
(Ace 1989) bopaloomop.
 THE 100 GREATEST SINGERS OF ALL TIME
ROY ORBISON "One listen to that incredible,
epic voice on Running Scared
and Crying and I became a
lifelong fan."
Ron Dante
"ROY ORBISON SINGING FOR THE LONELY
- hey that's me and I want you only," Bruce
JONI
MITCHELL
^I^^^W "I wasn't such a fan of her
^^L-^B voice at first, then the keys
^00^^ started to get lower and the
voice started sounding fantastic. A great
testament to 60 fags a day!"
Clive Gregson
JONI MITCHELL HAS BEEN AT LEAST
two remarkable singers, the first among the
best of a genre, the second unique.
When her first album, Songs To A
Seagull, came out in 1968 she was 24 but
looked 12; her voice was agile, angelic,
shimmering with vibrato. But then she
made Blue (1971). Romantically distressed
post-Graham Nash, feeling transparent as
"a cellophane wrapper on a pack of ciga
rettes", she made what she saw as a "liter
ary decision" to enter the confessional.
Her high sweetness — exemplified by Big
Yellow Taxi's girlish charm — might have
veiled her writing's unprecedented can
dour but, as she asserted, "There's hardly a
dishonest note in the vocals." Fan mail
confirmed to her it was "the intimacy of
the voice" that appealed most because "it
made people feel less lonely".
However, had she stopped there her
reputation as a singer might have stopped
at "pretty Joan Baez-type folkie". Instead,
she began to draw on the previously unex
pressed scope of her vocal instincts and
Springsteen warbled i teria Ray's signature tune, Cr\', and Pat
on Thunder Road. j Boone's white-on-black stylings generated in
Has any other voice I the American public. Orbison subsequently
the ability to tap the I penned his own attention-grabbers like Only
raw, romantic disap i The Lonely, Running Scared, It's Over, In
pointment that : Dreams, Crying, Only The Lonely, mostly
informs our lives? i pocket operas (critics dubbed him "the Caruso
The Big O discov ■ of rock") with Tex-Latin rhythms and keening
ered his vocation at an
j strings. The rocker Oh Pretty Woman, with its
early age. He saw his ■ one-off Orbison happy ending, was ironically
" "V r.1J r,1
U Lr ' voice as a "God-given
. i i * A i\ j ; his greatest hit but those swollen ballads define
thing", principally
because it gave him an ; him.
"I always had a dream or a vision of making
'in': compensation for
the ugly-duckling fea ; music that I personally wanted to express and
tures and heavy astig ; then sing that for as many people as wanted to
matism that guaran I hear it, so I kept straight in line and sung
teed him outsider sta i songs like Crying, which was written when the
tus in his macho, i whole age was macho," he told this writer,
baseball-crazy Texas j
"Not only did guys not only talk about it, but
hometown of Vernon. i
you weren't even meant to cry. But the
j
records sold in their millions, so I must have
Roy's gift was an
ultra-sensitive, con i
touched them somehow."
trolled melodic tenor, Elvis Presley was one of those Orbison atfect-
with tremulous tone ; ed, naming the Texan as his favourite singer.
and steep falsetto ; More than two decades later, David Lynch made
The Big O: the lift-off. Crescendos i In Dreams the epicentre of Blue Velvet,
losers' champion. i Springsteen, Bono and Elvis Costcllo wrote
were a speciality,
: songs for him, and The Travelling Wilburys
alongside a style of
'curling' phrasing, weaving in and around the
octave, a mannerism appropriated from doo-
j made room for him. A week after he visited
I London to promote the Wilburys' album, saving
woppers and post-war balladeers such as j "I'm fit, I'm really good," a heart attack silenced
i that untamed voice for good. (MA)
Johnnie Ray. Orbison's favourite singer was
country star Lefty Frizzell, but he swung away ; Born: April 23, 1936 Died: December 6, 1988
from his roots, firstly because Sam Phillips, j Sublime moment: die repeated, hysterical tide
who signed Orbison to Sun, told him to "sing i mantra at the climax of It's Over (from Golden
like a black man" (the singer was shocked) I Days, Monument, 1981)
and, secondly because Orbison noted the hys- I Recommended: Golden Days (Monument 1981)
influences: jazz, blues, show songs; Annie
Ross, Billie Holiday, Laura Nyro. The
Hissing Of Summer Lawns (1975) proved the
fulfilment of her respect for "the text" and
her feel "for singing with an ear for the
music and meter of speech".
No longer even slightly cute, she pitched
almost everv line at her middle and lower
register. She snaked around the fretless
bass, slid notes every which way, curved
weird harmonies with herself, pulled off
killer coups like the dying fall at the end of
Harry's House when his wife tells him "Just
what he could do with Harry's house/And
Harry's take home pay".
If her writing then became over-complex
for popular taste, the grace and flair of that
second voice never let her down. Somewhat
nicotine-abraded, it was still delivering on
her love of "a well contoured phrase" in a
middle-age both award-laden and adorned
with accolades from artists tor whom she
had become a beacon, among them Annie
Lennox, Prince, Shawn Cofvin, David
Bowie, Janet Jackson and Jimmy Page. (PS)
Born: Roberta Joan Anderson, November
7, 1943
Sublime moment: Mitchell as a Viet vet
sings the horror, "There's a war zone inside
me — I can feel diings exploding", from
1.45, The Beat Of Black Wings (Chalk Mark
In A Rain Storm, Geffen 1988)
Recommended: The Hissing Of Summer
Lawns (Asylum 1975)
 CEOR6E tonk heritage. And though George is great
when proclaiming the virtues of bar-room

JONES "He can sing a dozen notes

wares, he's even more potent when, seem
ingly drinking alone, he muses on love gone
George: in it
for the quack?

<2> in one syllable."

Gary Brooker, Procol Harum
NO MESSIN'. THE SIMPLE FACT IS
that George possesses the greatest voice in
country music. He's up there with the
Sinatras, Arethas and Brother Rays of this
world as one of the great untouchables. A
lot of country singers attempt to emulate his
style and some get close. But there's really
no substitute for the real thing.
A Texas-born ex-marine, George initially
made a breakthrough as Thumper Jones, a
rockabilly who'd learnt at the feet of both
Hank and Elvis. A move towards honky-
tonk found him establishing his own sound.
By the early '60s he was winning every poll
that country music could devise. Tammy
Wynette married him just, to hear that voice
every day. It's a voice that hints at the
blues, one that seems to stem from the
back of the throat, a kind of escapee that
George is unwilling to release to the world.
Often, it's as if the wav to the ether is
through clenched teeth. Predictably, it
comes beer-stained, as ordained by honky-
wrong, his version of He Stopped Loving
Her Today resulting in the song amazingly
being voted CMA's Song Of The Year in
both 1980 and 1981. HI -:mm.
He has his demons, a reliance on the
bottle resulting in a bizarre incident at a
Nashville club when he suddenly decided he
was Donald Duck and began singing his hits
not in his own voice but that of Disney's
quack-happy creation. Thankfully, George,
the man who's been dubbed "The Rolls-
>><'" '
Royce Of Country Music", continues to
make music in his own unique manner even
though US country DJs play his records tar
less these days — a fact that tells you more
about Nashville now than the current quali
ty of George Jones's music. (FD)
f9M9f!9!!rj
Born: September 12, 1931
Sublime moment: First chorus of Night
Life duet with Waylon Jennings at 0.46-
1.12 on My Very Special Guests (Epic 1977)
deceptively relaxed, full of blues smears, and
totally distinctive.
Recommended: 77ie Spirit Of Country- The
Essential George Jones (Epic/Legacy 1994)

FNINA SIMONE
"The queen of drama, she can
And Grill in Atlantic City under a pseudonym,
hoping to make enough money to give up concert-hall demanded the total respect of her

<2>
also totally floor you with
moments of fragile beauty."
Robert Wyatt
EUNICE WAYMON DIDN'T INTEND TO BE
a singer. Years of piano tuition from the age of
seven had fuelled ambitions to be the first black
American concert pianist. It was a destiny that
met with the approval of her stern, lay-preacher
mother. While mom stayed oblivious at home
in Tryon, North Carolina, the young Eunice
took a summer job playing in The Midtown Bar
teaching piano and study at the famed Julliard
School Of Music. Aged 22, Eunice had never
been to a bar before. On her first night she kept
it instrumental and improvised — one piece last
ing for three hours — but her employer, Harry
Steward, though impressed, wasn't entirely
happy. "Tomorrow night, you're cither a singer
or you're out of a job." Thus, Nina Simone,
singer, was born.
Within days, a crowd of rapt regulars was
gathering at the Midtown, and right from the
start, the girl trained in the ways of the
audience, thereby earning an enduring reputa
tion for being a moody, confrontational per
former. After a few seasons, Nina's dreams were
taking a back seat to the growing demand for
her unusual approach to pop song and she made
her first recordings. Her debut album, Little Girl
Blue (1958), captured the feel of those early
performances (and includes her timeless reading
of My Baby Just Cares For Me), blending stan
dards, jazz hits of the day, and her improvisa
tions on blues and classical themes. On each of
her many albums since she's been unciassifiable,
a unique stylist, her interpretations of oth
ers' songs often surpassing the originals.
Simone's voice is soulful but she's not a
soul-singer. She swings, but she's not a
azz singer. She has always rejected such
labels, not least, she says, because they
assume that these are all a female black
singer should be. The sound that forms in
that impressive mouth can be woody and
mellow or surprisingly trumpety and
brash. With its rapid, tremulous vibrato,
it's an untutored, wayward voice full of
raw expression.
In the '60s, Nina — becoming militant
within black politics — wrote powerful
songs such as To Be Young, Gifted And
Black and Mississippi Goddam which
underline the passion she brings to every
thing she sings. The venerated critic Ralph
J. Gleason has described Simone as "a
singer, an actress, a preacher and a religious
symbol, whose very presence inspires to
achievement, to art, and ultimately to life
itself. Hear, hear. (]\)
Born: 12 February, 1933
Sublime moment: Every second of He
Needs Me from Little Girl Blue
(Bethlehem 1959)
Recommended: Feeling Good: The Best Of
Nina Simone (Polygram 1997)
 THE 100 GREATEST SINGERS OF ALL-TIME
North America. At the
best of times, he just
barely had it under con
trol. Those oh-so-familiar
songs are sonograms of a
shambolic life, and were
sung with absolutely
skewering conviction.
Early in life, Flank per
fected the haw-haw- with
which country singers
greeted the world.
Beneath the mask lay an
intense, suspicious, self-
absorbed and highly dri
ven man. There was an
almost desperate haste
because he knew his time
was short. His sound was
rural, and no one as
unapologetically rural
would be half as success
ful again. Vowels were squeezed out as if
WILLIAMS
"Hank Williams's delivery is so
trapped in his vocal cords, to be echoed by the
wordless cry of the steel guitar. He slipped
effortlessly, and with often chilling effect, into
falsetto. His range was narrow, but within it
honest you can't help but respect
there was an infinite variety of subtle shadings.
and learn from him."
The passion of mountain music was offset by the
weary resignation of the blues. Unencumbered
radio shows. "When he was singing, he'd forget
where he was," said Franks. "I asked him one
time how he could give so much to a song and
how he would get that feeling, and he said,
'Tillman, I like to hear me sing and I feel it so
much I ain't worried whether they like it or
not.' But it was that good."
A recording artist for six years, and a star for
four, Hank made just 66 recordings under his
own name (plus recitations under a pseudonym
and religious duets with his wife, Audrey). He'd
sometimes record four self-composed classics in
one afternoon. Between 1.30 and 5pm on
March 16, 1951, for instance, he cut I Can't
Help It (If I'm Still In Love With You), Howlin'
At The Moon, Hey! Good Lookin' and My
Heart Would Know.
Hank Williams wasn't the best-selling country-
artist of his day (that honour, believe or not, fell
to Eddy Arnold), but no one in country music
has equalled his overall achievement. Forty-five
years after his death, they're still invoking his
ghost in Nashville. No one has vet written a
song the equal of I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry
or sung with such unshakeable solitariness. (CE)
Born: September 17, 1923
Died: January- 1, 195 3
Sublime moment: Vocal-guitar demo of Weary-
Blues From Waitin'. The utter desolation of
"for all the things that might have been, I hang
my head and cry" at 1:40 (Low Down Blues,
Mercury Nashville)
Recommended: 40 Greatest Hits (MGM 1991)

VA N As a consequence he never devel-

i oped along the same lines as other
MORRISON I rock singers. From the vappy snarl
; of his first recordings with Them,
^00^^^ "So poetic, and it ; to the rumbling meditations of his
• later work, Morrison grew ever less
^y L~^B always comes from
^00100^ the heart." i interested in making a show. He
Maggie Bell ! doesn't project, or express, for the
HE GRUNTS, HE GROWLS, HE j benefit of his audience: we are
• merely allowed to eavesdrop on
snorts, he mutters — and still it
sounds like a sacrament. Not every ; some obsessive, private dialogue.
On the pivotal Astral Weeks LP we
one is enchanted by the voice of Van
j can hear his voice mid-way between
Morrison, but to those who are, I the edginess of his youth and the
there is no other voice that seems so
j deeper, more measured resonance
spiritual. The best description is j of his maturity. But he's already
probably his own: The Inarticulate I begun to sing in tongues: "And I
Speech Of The Heart. i shall drive my chariot down your
Uniquely for a white singer of his ■ streets and cry/Hey! It's me, I'm
generation, Van was already steeped i dynamite and I don't know why"
in blues before he heard Elvis j (Sweet Thing). He's the least pre-
Presley. Unlike Lennon and the rest, ; cise of vocalists, and maybe the
he was not smitten by the arrival of j most eccentric, but Van can gen-
rock, and never fixated upon the j uinely seem in a trance when he
flash or the glamour. "Pop has just ; performs — like he's forgotten who,
never been my music," he says. ; what or where he is.
"Because I've always heard the real "When he was on-stage he would
stuff, y'know? I grew up in a house ; look like a space cadet," recalled
hold where I heard all the real music, j one of his musicians. "But then
so when I heard pop I didn't have to • he'd open his mouth, and you
rush out. 1 would realise that he had chan-
"I loved Little Richard and Fats ; nelled everything into the sound of
Domino, but I had the background j his voice. The rest ot it was just a
of hearing this other music since I j shell that was there for the purpose
was three. So it wasn't such a big j of producing this voice." (PDN)
injection, like with rebellious I Born: August 31, 1945
teenagers when they heard ■ Sublime moment: Van locates the
rock'n'roll. I'd already heard similar ! Eternal Now, in Belfast circa 1955,
music that was called j at 7.44 of Take Me Back (Hymns To
rhythm'n'blues, which was where i The Silence, Polydor 1991)
rock'n'roll came from. So it wasn't ; Recommended: Astral Weeks
any big diversion." I (Warner Bros 1968)
 SOD;J.Q >juo;-j *3U'J3iD3
1
H P O ES O
_0*
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N AT
KING COLE
^••^^^^ "A suave, debonair singer - plus
^^F-^P he was a fantastic piano player.
^0I00W His singles Sweet Lorraine and
Lush Life are for keeps."
Terry Callier
LIKE LOUIS ARMSTRONG, NAT KING
Cole went from instrumental jazz virtuoso to
worldwide near-deity as a pop vocalist. And
though jazzbos still mourn the crossover, like
Pops he went willingly. If Cole's piano playing
was never as revolutionary as Armstrong's
trumpet, well, Louis never became the world-
class ballad singer Cole turned out to be.
In the beginning, Cole's ascendance to such
mainstream heights seemed as improbable as
Satchmo's. The King Cole Trio was estab
lished, an acknowledged influence on Oscar
Peterson, Ahmad Jamal, and later the MJQ.
The story of the pianist being heckled into
singing Sweet Lorraine by a drunk is apoc
ryphal, but destiny didn't see him shackled to
a piano bench. Billy Strayhorn knew it. The
great Ellington composer had kept Lush Lite
to himself for over a decade until he heard
what could happen between Nat Cole and a
microphone. When Mona Lisa exploded in
1950 — the breakthrough for unknown
arranger Nelson Riddle — the course was set.
Cole always admitted that he didn't become a
true singer until he denoted himself to the craft
exclusively. And from its modest beginnings,
what a voice it became! His rough edges (such
as they were) were not
simply smoothed out,
they were lovingly bur
nished until his warm
baritone glowed with a
casual intensity one finds
only in complete mastery.
It's passionate restraint, a
concept almost com
pletely foreign to rock
singing. His diction and
phrasing were impecca
ble, his voice as attuned
to rhythmic nuance as his
piano had been. Set in
front of orchestras guided
by Riddle, Pete Rugolo,
Billy May and Ralph
Carmichael, he brought
grace and elegance to a
philistine marketplace.
His perfect surfaces
have been a bottomless
well of inspiration to Ray
Charles, Chuck Berry,
Sam Cooke, Marvin Gave,
Aaron Neville, Bryan Ferry and countless other sure of being caressed one more time by the
vocalists. Like most pop crooners caught in the unforgettable voice of Nat King Cole. (BE)
headlights of rock'n'roll, he was capable of mak Born: March 17, 1917
ing perfectly atrocious choices in material, Died: February 15, 1965
hokum like Nature Boy and featherweight chart
fodder like Lazy Hazy Crazy Days Of Summer. Sublime moment: The 1949 reading of Lush
But when he died at 47 of lung cancer — he was Life (Lush Life, Capitol Jazz); the original's still
a longtime three-pack-a-day smoker — there the greatest
wasn't anyone who wouldn't have suffered Recommended: 20 Golden Greats
another Ramblin' Rose gladly, just for the plea (Capitol, 1978)
BOB DYLAN blucsmen like Sleepy John Estes, Jesse
Fuller and Bukka White; harsh and bit
^0^0^^ "Don't matter if you ter, Dylan's voice in his protest period
t B think his voice is like was a spear to the establishment's heart
^0000^ sand and glue, every — a perfect analogue of his material.
thing he sung was 100 per cent Later, as he moved into rock, Dylan
convincing." drew on the likes of Chuck Berry for the
Edwyn Collins machine-gun monotony of Subterranean
Homesick Blues and the swaggering,
FOR '60S ADOLESCENTS, BOB
mordant wit of Tombstone Blues.
Dylan's voice was one of the defining
landmarks of the generation gap: Capable of great pity, sly humour and
vicious cruelty within the same song,
although the Stones, as lascivious
Dylan was forced to develop a vocal
sybarites clearly bent on rogcring the method which would enable him to
nation's daughters, may have
navigate those emotional twists and *
presented a more immediately fright turns accurately; the result was that, by
ening prospect tor parents, it was the time of Blonde On Blonde, he had
Dylan's nasal whine that proved the
ultimate test. "You call that singing?" effectively brought a whole new vocabu
a thousand fathers enquired con lary of dramatic inflection to the form,
the better to animate his increasingly
temptuously as Bob droned through
Like A Rolling Stone or The Times complex, multi-layered songs. It has
stood him in good stead ever since,
They Are A-Changin'. "He's flat! He
can't hold a tune! He's not even try through drastic alterations in attitude
(viz his born-again Christian period)
ing!" For the first time in popular and even wholesale changes in his vocal
music, here was a voice that didn't sound — most notably the smooth nasal
meet the listener halfway, that didn't
croon he discovered for Nashville Skyline
beg for approval, or try to disguise (Columbia, 1969). And as the gripping
the sometimes harsh sentiments of
Time Out Of Mind (Columbia, t997)
his songs. The effect was as liberating
in its day as punk was a decade later, demonstrates, he remains just as potent
a blues stylist today as he was three
freeing a generation from outmoded decades ago. (AG)
notions of musical correctness.
With hindsight, Dylan can be Born: May 24, 1941
acclaimed as one of the great blues Sublime moment: The brilliant bal
singers of the century. A.s early as his ance of affection, irony and camp
eponymous first album (Columbia, drama in the middle eight (2.26) of
1962), he was modifying his Woody Just Like A Woman (Blonde On Blonde)
Guthrie-derived folk style with coarse, Recommended: Blonde On Blonde
raspish inflections gleaned from black (Columbia 1966)
 REATEST SINGERS OF ALL TIME
ot rock'n'roll, Brown likewise an
artist of enormous stature, but nei
ther compares with Redding when it
comes to, as Otis said, "what we call
soul". Richard and Brown are mas
ters of audience manipulation, but
what Otis did wasn't manipulation.
There is a moment on his Live In
Europe recording when he asks the
audience, as R&B artists have done a
million times, "You
feel all right?" Yeah,
the sibilant roar
conies back, and he
"The greatest
says, "I do too." Otis soul singer on
wasn't pretending.
Like most record."
Southerners, Otis
started singing in
Ian Brown
church, where the
best music in America still happens.
Later, because of Little Richard's
standing in Macon, Otis spent con
siderable time imitating him directly
"Little Richard," Otis said, "is actu
ally the guy that inspired me to start
singing. My favourite song of his was
Heebie Jeebies. I remember it went:
'My bad luck baby put the jinx on
me.' That song really inspired me to
start singing, because
I won a talent
show with it."
This was at the
R&B artists, like Sam Cooke and Ray Charles,
had achieved in the way of crossover popularity
before him. The 1965 Stax-Volt European tour,
and 1967's Monterey Pop Festival, revealed to
him the potential breadth ot his audience.
When he recorded Dock Of The Bay, he was
consciously attempting to link the soulfulness of
his voice with the situation of a homeless hippy
in psychedelic-era San Francisco. It was a mar
keting strategy, but his treatment of the song,
gentle, resigned, made it the
success that it remains today.
Otis was an instinctive, rather
than a trained, artist. He said
that he couldn't sing and
couldn't dance. Compared to
Perry Como and Gene Kelly,
perhaps he couldn't, but his
instrument was a perfect vehicle
for his depth of feeling. The
best! Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra,
Ray Charles, Percy Mayfield, Tony Bennett —
all give us one gift above all: the joy they take
in singing. The honest emotion of Otis's bal
lads (These Arms of Mine, Pain In My Heart),
his inspired duets with the woefully underrated
Carla Thomas (Tramp, Lovev Dovey) and the
incomparable cover versions of songs as dis
similar as Try A Litde Tenderness and Shake,
make up as tine a recorded legacy as any of his
peers'. They also serve as proof that
Otis was wrong on just one count.
Boy, could he sing.
Stanley Booth

OTIS Flillview Springs Social

Club, where Otis won
Born: September 9, 1941.
Died: December 10, 1967

REDDING the contest "for 15

Sunday nights straight,
and then they wouldn't
Sublime moment: Supreme
pathos of the upward sliding
Soul, tenderness and power.' note on the word "tied" at
let me sing no more,
(^jj) • JB Jacqui McShee, Pentangle
wouldn't let me win
that five dollars any
0.22-0.24, I've Been Loving
You Too Long (Otis Blue)
SOMEONE SAID OF THE NEW ORLEANS Recommended: Otis Blue
more. So that really
clarinet player Johnny Dodds that he never (Atlantic/Volt 1966)
inspired me." Heebie
played an insincere note in his life. The same is Jeebies was an up-tempo
true of Otis Reckling's voice. There have been
song, but Little Richard's
many smoother and more facile singers, but genuine qualities as a singer
none with greater sincerity. came out with his ballads,
There was no doubting the reality of Otis. such as Send Me Some
Writing a piece for the Saturday Evening Post, I Lovin'. His voice, with
spent the last week of Otis Redding's life with its rough edges,
him at Stax, watching him write and record made them all the
Dock Of'flic Bay, Hard To Handle, and other more believable.
songs. He got out of the white limo at the curb, Otis's style was
under the Stax (Soulsville, USA) marquee, took similar: direct
time to speak to the boys in bright pants on the and open in its
sidewalk, pushed open the swinging doors, appeal.
and gave a contact high to everyone he Otis was
met. When Otis arrived, everybody went aware ot
to work. Those around Otis share the what other
same opinion — he made you feel good.
"He didn't have any vices, and he didn't
have any faults," Steve Cropper has said
of his songwriting partner. "Which is
very unusual. It sounds like you're
making it up."
Otis could explain without
words; I saw him do it, but anybody
who listens can hear too. That little
studio, fashioned from the former
Capitol movie theatre on East McLemore
Avenue, became an alchemical crucible
in which the events and emotions of
everyday life were transmuted into solid
gold drum and bass patterns, horn lines,
guitar accents, inescapable lyric pleadings
and exultations. Otis Redding: couldn't
Hailing from Georgia, Otis is often dance, or so he thought.
mentioned along with Little Richard and Could sing a little, though. ^
James Brown. Richard is a mountain peak
 SAM
COOKE "Smooth as silk."

I
Huey Lewis

FOR JERRY WEXLER, SAM

Cooke was simply "the best singer
who ever lived, no contest" - pretty
unequivocal stuff from a man who
made Aretha Franklin a superstar.
Mind you, Franklin herself would
probably have agreed: not only did she
have a giant crush on Cooke, she owed
everything to the way the boy ushered
gospel singing into the pop-soul era.
"Sam did it in a different way," said
S. Roy Crain, who sang alongside
Cooke in the hugely popular gospel
quartet The Soul Stirrers. "He didn't
want to be that deep, pitiful singer.
With his cocksure charm and svelte,
pretty-boy looks, Cooke was a very
different proposition to the bald,
blind, screaming testifiers who'd pre
ceded him as quartet leads. Where the
Reverends Archie Brownlce and Julius
Cheeks trafficked in Baptist hysteria,
young turk Cooke soared over their
heads with a lilting, acrobatic grace,
an Ariel to their Prospero. In the
process he became a teen heart-throb,
the black Elvis.
Cooke's tenor, as carefree and play
ful as a midsummer swallow, is the
perfect blend of honey and sandpaper:
sweetly soulful, with just enough
coarseness to make it emotionally
convincing. None of his disciples —
from Otis Redding through Rod
Stewart to Terence Trent D'Arby —
ever quite replicated that irresistible
mixture. If his technique never varies
too widely, what technique it is, with
its wide nasal vowels, dipping melis-
ma, and trademark "woah-ooh-oh-
oh" vocal signature.
The boy was at his incomparable
best on the 'SOs gospel sides cut for
Specialty: tentative at first, on 195 l's
Peace In The Valley, but then coming
into his own on Thomas Dorsey's
Someday, Somewhere and on 1953's
Come And Go To That Land. "Of
course Sam did his best work in
gospel," huffed gospel matriarch
Dorothy Love Coates. "How you gonna take (Nothing Can Change This Love, Bring It On by cloying horn and string arrangements, to say
somebodv who loves what he's doing and turn Home To Me, and of course A Change Is Gonna Cooke "overrode" them on this barely-veiled
him around and put him in something unfamil Come) achieved that fusion masterfully. But it civil rights anthem would be a comical under
iar, and he's gonna be as was the teen idol's mis statement. Along with the belated release of the
free and natural as he fortune that "crossing warts'n'all Live At The Harlem Square Club, cut in
was at home?" The "A singer's singer. over" at the turn of the Florida in 1963, that posthumous hit remains
decade meant churning
greatest singing of all can the best way to remember "the man who
be heard on the Stirrers Everybody borrows out saccharine pap like
invented soul" — a man using that patented
masterpieces recorded in from somebody, and Only Sixteen and
Teenage Sonata. For honey-and-sandpaper formula to wring tears of
early 1956: The Last
Mile Of The Way, Touch I can't sing a song every semi-decent pop
record — Cupid,
hope from words of despair. "When I listen to
him, I still can't believe the things he did," sums
The Hem Of His
Garmet, the harrowing without thinking Wonderful World — up Jerry Wexler. "It's always fresh and amazing
there was an abomina to me. When I listen to his gospel work, every
Pilgrim Of Sorrow.
Had Cooke been of Sam." tion that made a mock t h i n g g o e s a w a y. " B a r n e y H o s k y n s
ery of his extraordinary-
making the move into
secular music a few Bobby Womack gifts. "A lot of people
Born: January 22, 1931
Died: December 11, 1964
don't realise how bad
years earlier, he'd Sublime moment: The desperate cries
have found the climate altogether more those records are," notes Jerry Wexler. "That he
overrode a lot of the sterility in them is a tribute unleashed at 1.42 on Pilgrim Of Sorrow (The
sympathetic to the gospel-R&B fusion
he aspired to: indeed, some of his to his genius." Two Sides Of Sam Cooke, Specialty 1970)
later R&B sides If even A Change Is Gonna Come is marred Recommended: Night Beat (RCA 1963)
 THE lOO GREATEST SINOERS OF ALL TIME
STEVIE
WONDER
>*f)^^^ "Not just a singer, but a poet,
VB • j^B musician, producer... and a
^ ^■^ ^ b e a u t i f u l p e r s o n . "
Madeline Bell
STEVIE WONDER'S EARLIEST MEMORY IS
Q M ^ ^ ^ ^ ot hearing a guitar on the radio. "It was Wes
Montgomery playing and it sounded... like but
ter," he recalled. That was pretty much all the
career information he ever needed. His musical
talent emerged accidentally, from the age of
eight, as family friends gave him a harmonica,
then a piano, then a drum kit. Fie found that,
"With music I belonged.
I never considered that
playing was 'practice'
because I loved it too
"Play a Stevie song
much." The vocal side
real loud; it will
just came naturally —
more so than for many always get you high.
soulsters because he was
thrown out of the local
Gabby Glaser,
church choir when the Luscious Jackson
preacher caught him
blowing sinful R&B on a street corner. Signed
and renamed by Berry Gordv at 10, he soon had
hits with harmonica jams, Fingertips and
Workout, Stevie, Workout. His voice didn't
really get across until the big Motown swinger
Uptight (Everything's Alright). The exultant
boyish joy he splashed all over that record — he
was just i 5 years old at the time — never entirely
left his singing.
But his late-teen period of transition saw
record company strategy wrestle with the young
artist's own musical vision. His Motown musical
director, Gene Kees, believed that "Stevie
Wonder has the potential to be another Sammy-
Davis by the time he's 21". On the other hand,
Wonder reckoned, "When I'm 21 I'm going to
have things my own way. I don't think you know-
where I'm coming from."
Vocally, the opposing poles were represented
by two hits. With I Was Made To Love Fler
(1967), Wonder's sensual/sexual soul surged
into new areas of red-blooded yearning. With
the standard For Once In My Life (1968), he
merely proved Kees right in one sense: he could
have sung strident ballads and conquered Las
Vegas like Sammy Davis Jr. But his heart wasn't
in it, he delivered a slick styling without much
sign of active engagement in wliat he was about.
The conflict continued until the day he
attained his majority',
May 13 1971. Rarely has
that symbolic date been
so dramatically translated
into radical change.
Recently married to
Syrecta Wright, he
moved to New York
and sought out
Malcolm Cecil and
Robert Margouleff,
yvizards of the just-fangled Moog synthesiz
er. The personal revolution that resulted in
Wonder's subsequent quintet of peerless
albums, Music Of My Mind, Talking Book,
Innenisions, Fuljillingness' First Finale and
Songs In The Key Of Life (released March
1972 to October 1976) set extreme chal
lenges which demanded a trulv great singer
to deliver on them.
Most striking at the time, probably, was
the hard ferocity of the former Little
Stevie's new political voice. Beyond all the
keyboard power, he sang furious
momentum into Living For The City,
snarled sardonic denunciation of com
placent liberals into You Haven't Done
Nothin' and floated a high keening
sorrow over his pictures of the ghetto
in Pastime Paradise (later adapted bv
Coolio). Nonetheless, he still reigned
supreme when it came to driving
sweaty funk into Boogie On Reggae
Woman and I Wish and, when he
slowed it down a bit, he reached into a
completely grown-up depth of tender
ness for the pure romance of Too Shy-
To Say and Knocks Me Off My Feet '
and the baby-smitten delight of Isn't
She Lovely.
However, 20 years on, Wonder's
vocal apogee emerges in a series of
songs about the ambiguities of love.
The subtlety would be lost without a
singer totally concentrated and "in
character" (even if the role is himself).
So he casts doubt on reassuring words
with melancholy performance (Don't
You Worry 'Bout A Thing, Smile
Please). Nothing's dependable. He
sings warily as if love were a threat in
Creepin', stoically to hide the hurt in
Ordinary- Pain, forlornly because
what's God up to if love never lasts in
If It's Magic. In fact, he sounds most
at ease when saying goodbye (to
Syreeta) with the sly, sexy confession
Maybe Your Baby and the ultimately
magnanimous It Ain't No Use (the last
line a fond "So long baby/Bye bye
baby").
Even then, all ot this omits perhaps
his single most rivetting vocal perfor
mance, the eldritch-dark They Won't Go When I
Go. Anger wrapped in despair, with a death
march tread, it sets Wonder's voice against
solemn piano and organ. A stray middle eight
suddenly blazes with rage against sinners, promis
ing them doom. It's a marvellous black mystery-
After 1976, Wonder's songwriting gradually
lost its intensity, his music its adventurousness.
But his singing remained terrific. A vibrant 1995
greatest hits tour set proved he had every inch
the voice and spirit that, back in his prime,
inspired Annie Lennox, then training as a classi
cal flautist, to revise her plans after experiencing
Wonder's "new definition of perfection — the
j o y, t h e f r e e d o m " . P h i l S u t c l i ff e
Born: Stcvcland Judkins Morris, May 13, 1950
Sublime moment: The joy of new fatherhood
captured in the very first "Isn't she lovely?"
from 0.37 (Songs In The Key Of Life)
Recommended: Songs In The Key Of Life
(Motown 1976)
 k THE 100 GREATEST SINGERS OF ALL TIME
The King in his joyous
prime at RCA. (Below)
Slimmed down physi
cally and musically for
the '68 comeback.
ELVIS
PRESLEY
^0^^^^ "Every one of those early records
^^F^B is rock'n'roll singing at its very
^^0^0^ best. The King."
Colin Blunstone
"Whatever he sang, he could communicate
the spirit emotionally and lyrically."
Meat Loaf
"One listen to Heartbreak Hotel, and you
understood."
Ron Dante
SETTING ASIDE THE DRUGS AND MYTH-
ology, the young good looks or the terminal
bloat, Elvis Presley was, above all, blessed with
one of the most powerful and flexible voices in
all of rock'n'roll, something that makes it dou
bly reprehensible that he so regularly put it to
the worst possible use. A.s his first Sun Records
amply document, Elvis's formative vocal style
was - for a callow 20 year old - a fairly calculat
ed amalgam of diverse vocal influences. The
R&B shoutings of Arthur (Big Boy) Crudup and
Lowell Fulson, the hillbilly twang of Hank
Williams and the gospel pre
cision of The Blackwood
Brothers arc cited by most
critics, but others — according
to Elvis himself, no less —
included a trademark, note-
bending hiccup borrowed
from Johnnie Ray, the high
range tenor of Bill Kenny of
The Inkspots and even Dean
Martin's alfredo smooth-wop.
After the 1956 move to
RCA, Elvis's range deepened
and he developed what was
already a unique voice to the
point where he could have only been challenged
by maybe Roy Orbison or Bill Medley. He-
gained an added lift from the regular use of The
Jordanaires as back-up singers but, above all, he
was able to communicate a combination of pas
sion and anger that drove young girls to near-
orgasm and sent out John Lennon and a million
other boys who could barely grow sideburns to
buy cheap electric guitars.
It's not intended as a put down to say that
Elvis was highly aware of the magnificence of his
own voice. At best, it was this
knowledge that allowed him to
take chances that other singers
scarcely dared dream about.
"He was the
(How many bar-billies do vou
ever hear belting out the vocal King. No other
complexities of Tryin' To Get
To You with the same devil-
comment is
may-care ease as the master?)
On the other side of the coin
necessary."
though — and with Elvis there
Marc Almond
was always another side to the
coin — it led him into areas
and arias that someone with more smarts and
caution wouldn't have touched with rubber
gloves. The post-Army excesses of It's Now Or
Never and Surrender, when he attempted to be
Mario Lanza with all the histri
onic gusto of an Italian night
club tenor, were a path that
might have been better left
unexplored. Indeed, if some
one had been sufficiently pre
scient to have Elvis' fancv for
faux grand opera surgically
removed around 1960, we
might have been spared the Lai
Vegas pomp and circumstance
of Bridge Over Troubled Wate
or American Trilogy.
Towards the end, Elvis's
awareness of his own vocal
power may have actually contributed in part to
his downfall. He was all too cognisant that his
pipes came with an after-burner that could
always get him out of trouble. Witness the tragic-
video clip of Are You Lonesome Tonight on the
final tour when, messed up and floundering, his
only recourse is to go to the chorus and power
his way to salvation, climbing like a Saber jet
above the haze. In the same way, and on the
same tour, the King As A Bloated Thing pounds
his own piano and soars to heart-attack altitudes
with the high melodrama read
ing of Unchained Melodv.
It's easy to talk about Ehis
Presley in the technical terms of
his range, energy, control, near
perfect pitch and all the other
rock-crit cliches. The almost
impossible task is to define the
X-factor that made him into a
20th century demi-god. It's not
the first time that I've recount
ed how late at night, at a dark
ened teenage party, Elvis insin
uated his yvay into the first line of Love Me —
"Treat me like a fool/Treat me mean and cruel"
- and every natural born woman in the room let
out a sigh of unqualified desire, or how, years
later, David Lynch attempted to recreate the
same moment in the movie Wild At Heart. That
such animal magic could translate from a vinyl
disc through a cheap '50s radiogram seemed to
defy all logic. But, then again, with Ehis, it was
never a good idea to expect logic. Y'ou take what
you get and, if blessed with half a brain, you do
what you can yvith it and revel in the divine
a b s u r d i t y. Mick Farren
Born: January 8, 1935 Died: August 16, 1977
Sublime moment: The opening notes of Love
Me, starting v\ith a swooning glissando at 0.02
(RCA single 1957)
Recommended: Platinum — A Life In Music
(RCA 1997)
 THE lOO GREATEST SINGERS OF ALL TIME
MARVIN
GAYE
"A voice that transcends the
genre from which it originated
and expresses desire in a way
that is totally universal."
Duncan Shiek
ALTHOUGH MARVIN GAYE'S CAREER WAS
established by his '60s hits - Ain't That
Peculiar, I Heard It Through The Grapevine,
Too Busy Thinking About My Baby — his voice
was more suited to the themes and musical
trends of the early '70s. Gaye resembled Sam
Cooke in his vocal revelations of deep psycho
logical contradictions. Urbane and chameleonic,
both had a veneer of class, verging on lounge
slickness, that needed richer, more adventurous
musical settings than '60s soul could offer.
Gaye proved his understanding ot this need
with What's Going On in 1971. Though always
technically capable of acting rough or smooth,
sounding seductive or gritty to order, his com
mitment to the meaning of the lyric had deep
ened. Given more room for improvisation his
voice soared like a hawk over the chaotically
dense, interwoven string lines, voices and
percussion, or dropped to a conversational mur
mur, communicating quiet despair.
The most affecting quality ot his voice
emerged with this album: a feeling of terrible
uncertainty masked by sensuality. The voice, like
the outer appearance, is strong and confident,
yet each utterance seems to reveal and conceal a
crisis of personal identity.
This was the essence of
blues and deep soul — pain "When I hear
and contusion expressed
through a powerful larynx —
Marvin singing a
yet the nature ot Gayc's voice
set him up as a smooth
love song, I feel
seducer, almost lacking any he's singing just
flaws. His insecurity is unex
pected, making him an
for me."
uneasy, though fascinating
companion.
P. P. Arnold
The polarisation within his
character is evident even in the contrasting titles
of What's Going On and Let's Get It On. If Gaye
intended to reassert his self-assured armour
through the boudoir schmooze of Let's Get It
On, his voice betrays him. Even the album's
opening words — "I've been really trying
baby..." — sound like the special pleading of a
virtuoso in self-deception. In other singers, this
odd clash of messages might be repellent but
Gaye's voice is disarmingly gorgeous.
1 he beauty mesmerises us, winning us
over to a sympathetic view of his falli
bility. For this reason, Let's Get It On is
a deeper work than the more celebrated
What's Going On. If What's Going On
gave the impression of serious intent,
the answers to its questions were often
trite; Let's Get It On revealed more
through inadvertent exposure. Gaye
feels on safe ground (ie the bed), so lets
himself stray into dangerous areas of
morbidity, sexual obsession, loss, frus
tration, self-pity and profound emo
tional pain.
As the music became more amor
phous, so Gaye gravitated towards
abstraction. On the Trouble Man score,
his singing had taken on a yearning,
oceanic quality, as if he was trying to
duplicate the slippery expressivity of
Motown alto saxophonist Eli Fontaine
(a soloist on Let's Get It On). Over the
brooding strings and piano of Poor
Abbey Walsh, Gaye pares down the lyric
to a few cogent words, seemingk-
singing them for the pleasure of voicing
sounds rather than narrative sense.
The danger stalking this tendency
was mannerism and Gayc's later work
could be marred by a dependence on
familiar, increasingly empty vocal
habits. On the absurdly underrated /
Want You (1976), there are plenty of
swooping "whooohs" yet their
exultancy is like a rush of oxygen in a
hot room. Gaye never sounded so
ecstatic, so lost in music, as he did
on the title track or Come Live With
Me Angel. Words stretch and melt
over Leon Ware's cosmic groove
tracks, floating through the chords,
dropping onto accents and into spaces
like a drum.
Two years later, this ecstatic blur was
wiped out by the sour clarity ot Gaye's
so-called alimony album, Here, My Dear.
Relentless in his wean' disillusionment,
Gaye reminds us of his storytelling
skills. The story may divulge details ot a
divorce that we would rather not share,
but Gaye draws us in. Like a person on the
brink ot tears, his high voice enunciating each
convoluted sentence with dogged precision, he
is determined that we follow his tale until the
bitter end of You Can Leave, But It's Going To
Cost You.
There is little more to say about Man-in
Gayc's struggle with God and
sex. Again like Sam Cooke, the
battle fed his greatest work
and contributed to his demise.
With hindsight, knowing
about the flight to Belgium,
then his violent death at the
hands of his father, we can say-
that the voices of You Can
Leave, But It's Going To Cost
You are deeply disturbing.
They are voices in the head,
collapsing over an edge; yet
there was Man-in Gaye's greatness: he was a
popular singer who could sing without hope yet
radiate b e a u t y. David To o p
Born: April 2, 1939 Died: April 1, 1984
Sublime moment: Compressing all of his vocal
intensity, the opening line of If I Should Die
Tonight (Let's Get It On)
Recommended: Let's Get It On (Motown 1972)
BILLIE
HOLIDAY
4*0*^^ "She dismantles and then re-
f^»^^B assembles a melody to such an
^^00^ extent that one assumes her
melody was the original."
David Byrne
BILLIE HOLIDAY WAS ONE OF THE VERY
greatest of jazz singers, if the essence of jazz
singing is to make a lyric come alive with per
sonal meaning. She told the story about discov
ering that she could sing as a teenager in New
York, but in fact she had been singing as a child
in Baltimore, where she heard records by Bessie
Smith; then Louis Armstrong was her biggest
influence, but in reality she owed very little to
earlier artists.
Billie seemed to choose a hard life, develop
ing self-destructive habits, but redeemed herself
through song. Record producer John Hammond
heard her in speakeasies, which did not have
sound systems: she went from table to table,
singing each chorus differently. He produced
her first two recordings in 1933, with a Benny-
Goodman studio band, but they were little more
than novelties. She appeared in Duke Ellington's
short film Rhapsody In Black in 193S, mean
while making a sensational debut at the Apollo,
MC Ralph Cooper advising Frank Schiffman to
book her with a famous description: "It ain't the
blues... I don't know what it is, but you got to
hear her." Meanwhile in mid-1935 she made
the first of over 100 records, mostly with small
groups led by Teddy Wilson, on which her fame
mainly still rests. They were made quickly and
cheaply for jukeboxes, using whatever jazzmen
happened to be in town (a roll-call of the great
est of the era); they sold so well that she was
engaged to record under her own name. Wilson
Lady Day: turned
obscure songs
into gold.
came to resent her: the sides he made with
Holiday started out as very much his records,
but came to be regarded as hers.
There is a myth that the songs were second-
rate. It isn't true. She and Wilson chose the new-
songs she liked best for each session; many were
hits at the time, and nobody knew which ones
would become standards. In any case she trans
muted them into gold, sometimes turning a
melody line inside out, endowing lyrics with
languor, irony, resignation or sexuality, depend
ing on the song. Her vocal texture was coarse
vet girlish, and profoundly affecting; her timbre
and her timing were unique.
Often among the sidemen was
her soulmate, tenor saxophonist "Jazz experts
Lester Young, who named her
Lady Day; Billie named him say her voice
Prcz (for President) and the
nicknames stuck. Frank Sinatra,
deteriorated
Carmen McRae and Lena with age and
Home were early admirers; jazz
fans loved her, but she never ill-health. I beg
broke through to the public at
large in her own lifetime.
to differ."
In 1939 she recorded
Robert Wyatt
Strange Fruit, an anti-lvnching
song, for Milt Gablcr's
Commodore label, because her label wouldn't
allow it. It became the most famous part of her
act, but it was a self-conscious art song, unlike
anything else she ever did. The other side was
Fine And Mellow, which Gabler copyrighted in
her name, so that she got royalties on it for the
rest of her life. He later took her to American
Decca to record with larger orchestras (she had
her only chart hit, Lover Man, in 1945); from
1953 she recorded for Norman Granz, return
ing to the .small-group format where she was
most at home, taking her chorus like the rest of
the boys. Her last two albums were again with
string orchestras, conducted by Ray Ellis.
Whisper it not: some people don't like Billie
Holiday's singing. It is possible simply to dislike
the sound of her voice, which became more
strained as she grew older, but most severe
(though they don't admit it in public) are a few
high-tone critics who don't appreciate what she
was doing. Most of the best singers will sing
behind the beat, or generate a different kind of
excitement by pushing the beat, or hammer
home certain words precisely on the beat,
depending on the song, the mood and many
other things. Lady Day always sang behind the
beat. She was typecast as a blues singer during
her lifetime because she was
black, but she hardly ever sang
the blues; she was streetwise
and would have regarded tolk
music as cornball, yet her atti
tude towards time was that of
a folk singer: resigned, con
templating time rather than
manipulating it. Thus even
Berlin's He Ain't Got Rhythm,
a funny song, has a timeless
quality; and the Al Jolson/Billy
Rose chestnut Back In Your
Own Back Yard is wistful: she
never had a back yard of her
own. She sang as she lived, wanting love but
knowing that it would be forever beyond her
grasp. Problems with drugs and bad relation
ships took their toll on her voice, and alco
holism took her life; yet the understated passion
in her interpretations was intact almost until
the end. Donald Clarke
Born: Eleanora Fagan, April 7, 1915
Died: July 17, 1959
Sublime moment: Eloquent, resigned regret
on Irving Berlin's This Year's Kisses (1937)
Recommended: Midpricc 3-CD compilation
The Legacy 1933-58 (Columbia 1991)
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 RAY
CHARLES
y^P^^ "He is a legend in our time and
^ ^ C ^ B t h e w h o l e w o r l d h a s b e n e fi t e d
^0^0^ from the love and happiness that
he has shared with us. He is the conqueror,
the comforter, the master of phrasing
and expression."
P.P. Arnold
"All the feeling you could ask for no matter
what material he's performing. The album
Genius + Soul = Jazz is a landmark that's
never been surpassed."
Terry Callier
IN OUR HEADS, THE VOICE OF RAY
Charles is a raw and primal force, attacking and
remoulding the material to convey his lascivious
intentions. But actually he respects the notes
and words as they were written. He always sings
in tune and his diction is impeccable.
When Ray recorded Georgia On My Mind in
1960, the song was a 30-year-old standard, long
reduced to a sentimental cliche by generations
of cabaret singers. Of the 16 Top 10 R&B hits
he'd recorded over the previous decade, only
one - 1959's What'd I Say- had crossed over
to mainstream pop success. The opening bars of
Ray's version, his debut cut for new label ABC,
arc a 20-second tease - lush strings and a coo
ing chorus could be setting us up for any of the
ballad crooners of the day: Sinatra, Johnny
Mathis, Nat King Cole. Just before the vocal, a
piano chord gives a hint, but when it finally
appears, the voice is a shock: thick, sen
suous, languorous. Where everything else
« in the record feels processed, the voice is
real. And, miraculously, the words come
back to life. Instead of stepping in the
song's well-trodden footprints, Ray holds
rougher, coarser vocal tone, inspired partly by
gospel singers like Alex Bradford. During 1954,
he put his own touring band together and
began to write call-and-response arrangements
in which this new voice was set against answers
from a horn section. It all came together on
November 18, 1954, when a hastily booked
recording session at a college radio station in
Atlanta resulted in I Got A Woman. The song's
upfront sexual content and gospel-based struc
ture disturbed that ultimate taboo of mixing the
sacred and profane; Atlantic cautiously put the
song on the B-side of the more conventional
Come Back Baby. But the R&B disc jockeys
Hipped the record, launching Ray's career and
clearing the way for others
to bring the spirit and
power of gospel into pop "The high priest,
music: Little Richard,
James Brown, Otis, Marvin, the genius, the
Aretha, Stevie Wonder,
Mavis Staples - the roll-call Michael Jordan of
of the singers in his debt is
scattered through this list
soul. Ageless."
of all-time great vocalists. Al Kooper
Ironically, while Ray
Charles was at the height of
his powers in the UK his records were rarely
heard. Despite the rhythmic influence of I Got
A Woman on Little Richard's Rip It Up, for
instance, Ray's records were considered rhyth
mically too sophisticated to quality' as
rock'n'roll. In the US, the lack of pop airplay
was balanced by his presence on jukeboxes and
R&B radio stations. In the UK, Atlantic's
licensees Decca didn't issue a Ray Charles single
for six years, until 1959's What'd I Say.
With What'd I Say, a contender for the most
influential pop record, Ray had taken the
gospel-based format one step further by recruit
ing a three-piece female vocal group — the
Raelettes — to echo his lines. For puritans, who
suspected that pop music represented the devil's
plot to corrupt suggestible teenagers, this record
provided incontrovertible proof. In any case,
this one record helped inspire a new generation
of British singers, including Steve Winwood, Joe-
Cocker, Rod Stewart, Procol Harum's Gary
Brooker, Paul Rodgers and Paul Young.
Ray Charles has sustained one of the longest
careers at the top in pop's history, 50 years
and counting. There have
been times when easy lis
tening arrangements threat
ened to drown his idiosyn
crasies, but he has always
been capable of making
awesome records, from
196 l's Hit The Road Jack
and 1965's I Don't Need
No Doctor, right through
to the '90s; as recently as
1993 he recorded a duet
with Mavis Staples, Love Has A Mind Of His
Own (Warner), which ranks among his very
best records. Charlie Gillett
Born: Sept 23, 1930
Sublime moment: "Hunh-unh-unh", 3.10 on
What'd I Say (London single 1959)
Recommended: The Birth Of Soul: The Complete
Atlantic Rhythm AnJ Blues RecorJings, 1952-
1959 (Atlantic/Rhino 4-CD set, 1992)
Ray: a little bit
frightening. But
he does it with
expert timing.

ft
back, delivering the words just that frac
tion later than expected, making us listen
to them as if for the first time; and he
claimed the song forever. Now, there's
no other way to imagine it — earlier
recordings seem quaint, and subsequent
f\
singers hang onto Ray's coat-tails.
As Miles Davis did for the trumpet, /f<0 ,'vN
and Jimi Hendrix for the guitar, Ray
Charles redefined the way his instrument
- the voice — has been used. Before him,
vou'll search hard to find a popular
singer with a raspy voice; since he sur
faced, rare is the singer without one.
Ray's unique gift is his timing.
When he was growing up in Georgia
and Florida during the '30s and early
'40s, Ray didn't notice any musical bar
riers or divisions. He heard big bands
and country music on the radio at home,
gospel in church on Sundays, and boogie
blues when he stood outside the local
taverns. In 1948, the 17-year-old blind
pianist took a five-day bus trip across
the country to the furthest place on the
map, Seattle. And there he became a
night club entertainer, mimicking Nat
King Cole and Charles Brown. The two
had pioneered the vowel-stretch ing style
of earning a syllable across several beats, Uf
I
and although Ray had a couple of hits
for the West Coast-based Swingtime
label, he stuck too close to their smooth
delivery to make a name for himself. But
after Atlantic bought out his contract in
1953 and gave him artistic control of his
own sessions, Ray Charles adopted a
 THE lOO GREATEST SINGERS OF ALL TIME
that forced Frank to develop "absolutely
brand new vocal cords", which he gently exer
cised backed to fitness. Together with a
stormy personal life — traumatic spats with
Ava Gardner and a widely publicised career
slump - Frank's travails were the making of
him as a great artist. The youthful cream in
his sound had become a little grainy, the into
nation was no longer faultless but the new-
voice was full of the detail of a life being lived
to the full. On new label Capitol, he re
recorded much of his '40s repertoire in care
fully devised 'theme' albums (lost love, travel,
dance, lost love again) for which he pro
grammed the songs, fine-tuned the tempos,
often conceived arrangement outlines and
ostensibly produced the sessions himself.
He'd been a committed, immersed singer
before but Sinatra of the '50s brought an
unprecedented presence to a song. He had
become a musical actor of magnetic, vivid
credibility. You Make Mc Feel So Young does
just that, One For My Babv nearlv stops your
heart. You just believe him. And so intoxicat
ing!) lucid were his recordings, countless jazz
musicians and singers were inspired to grab a
piece of die songs for themselves. Sinatra cre
ated standards in both senses of the word.
After the golden Capitol Years (1953-60),
there is much to enjoy on Reprise (1960 on)
and even a.s the pipes graduallv diminished, the
storytelling power never left him; his 1980s and
'90s in-concert Soliloquy was immensely mov
ing. His experiences with rock-era songwriting
were mixed, however. The majestic 1967 col
laboration with Jobim notwithstanding, Sinatra
was a swing-band singer and melodv man, never
really sounding comfortable with a straight 4/4
beat or a folksy tune. Hearing him try to make-
sense of Both Sides Now or Leaving On A Jet
Plane is like watching your dad trving to walk in
platform shoes. To confound us, a 1980 reading
of George Harrison's Something may be among
his all-time triumphs.
Greatest Hits compilations are not the way
in. On Reprise especially, the singles were

FRANK New York intellectual, to the lust for life of a

New Orleans stevedore.
Sinatra grew up in the '30s influenced by the
often unsubtle, commercial efforts containing
only the vapour of the essence of Frank's art. He
didn't always bother to hide his distaste for
SINATRA emotive power of Billie Holiday and the decep
tively casual swing of Bing Crosby, but he also
them. At one concert, he credited the writers of
Strangers In The Night (a regular ceremony
j#*J^^^ "When I was young my mother aspired to the seamless musical phrasing of usually performed with humble respect and
^yr^B told me he had great phrasing. I Tommy Dorsey's trombone and Jascha Heifetz's gratitude) with "I don't even know who the hell
^^00r didn't realise what that meant violin playing. Strengthening his lungs and crib these guys are"; of the tacky sclf-mvthology that
until much later in life. What a beautiful is My Way, he said, "I
bing Dorsey's trick of
ballad singer." loathe it. A Paul Anka
taking imperceptible
Brian Wilson breaths between
"The best voice ever: total charisma!" phrases, he evolved a
"Gifted with ultimate pop song that became a
kind of national
anthem." But while
Tommy Scott, Space super-legato singing
style, approximating
insight - so musical, these and other
IN THE DAYS AFTER FRANKIE SHUFFLED the Italian be] canto his timing was perfect, nuggets of questionable
off his well-worn mortal coil, you could walk value dominate the
down a London street and hear boozy parties style (literallv 'beautiful
singing') — "but with
his voice had a poetic karaoke appreciation of
out making a point of
bidding him farewell with a shambling New
York New York or My Way. Perhaps the Sinatra it", he used to qualify.
licence no other Frank, the albums A
fan might have regretted that the send-off wasn't Swingin' Affair, In The
Frank often confessed Wee Small Hours and
being marked with something more high-art, a to being concerned singer's ever had." those below are the
Wee Small Hours, or It Was A Very Good Year.
But that was the point about Frank: that the
with words over Tony Bennett precious artistic jewels.
melody and took great Chris Ingham
loudmouth swagger was as convincing as the care not to breathe obviously and interrupt the
existential despair. In fact, there were many Born: December 12, 1915
lyric's flow of meaning. His swoonsome phras Died: May 14, 1998
songs, including 1966's That's Life, where the ing and full-bodied tone caused hysteria among
former only thinly disguised the latter. Will '40s bobbv.soxers. Technically, he's in amazing Sublime moment: The "But don't..." an
Fricdwald, in MOJO's tribute four months ago, control, conducting the screams of his audience octave and a tone above the written melodv
commented how Sinatra's control became so with a well-timed pause or a passionate musical beginning the second time through the final 12
fine that he could command every microtone of bars of My Funny Valentine (Songs For Young
sigh. But it's also achingly vulnerable, though
the emotional keyboard. Equally, his range was never melodramatic; there's no catch or sob in Lovers, Capitol 1953/4).
so wide he could seemingly summon up every the throat, just the beautiful sound of a man Recommended: Up: Songs For Swingin' Lovers
sentiment native to the America he so often cel keeping his dignity while his heart is fit to burst. (Capitol 1956), Down: Only The Lonely
ebrated, from the analytical appreciation of a It was a throat haemorrhage in the early '50s (Capitol 1958)
THE lOO GREATEST SINGERS OF ALL TIME
■M M

Life lessons
taught here:
Aretha at
Atlantic.
O ARETHA FRANKLIN
"She has all the Olympian leaps and trills,
plus what's so often missing from others -
b e l i e v a b i l i t y. "
Eddi Reader
"The essence of human spirit."
Vic Chesnutt
"I'm staggered by the sheer ease with which
she seems to sing."
Cerys Matthews
"The undisputed Queen of Soul, no one can
touch her."
Holly Cole
"She is our queen."
Martha Reeves
IT SURPRISED NO ONE AROUND HERE
when Aretha Franklin topped our poll of
singers. The overwhelming margin by which she
triumphed, however, made everyone sit up and
take notice. So perhaps the late Lester Bangs
was wrong when he wrote, "We will never again
agree on anything as we agreed on Elvis." Our
respondents agreed overwhelmingly on the
voice of Miss Aretha Franklin. She is our once
and forever Queen of Soul, a crown that didn't
exist until her immense talent demanded that
one be minted. If all she had contributed to our
culture was the string of late '60s pearls she cut
with Jerry Wexler at Atlantic, she'd have figured
near the top of our list. But our singers are
honouring her for a full body of work, one that
stands proudly for decades on both sides of her
Atlantic recordings.
The daughter of
Reverend C.L. Franklin
stood up in her father's
"Flying aside, she's
New Bethel Baptist Church fearless. Her voice
in Detroit and sang her first
solo when she was eight.
is a healer, and if
She made her first record
you listen closer,
ing, a version of Clara
Ward's The Day Is Past she'll teach you
And Gone, leased to Chess,
when she was 14. "That about life."
one - C.L.'s girl - that's
the one to watch," the
Carmen Lundy
great Dinah Washington is
reported to have said. The recorded evidence,
now largely out-of-print, shows her magnificent
instrument already being wielded with an assur
ance well beyond her years, and suggests that had
she chosen to remain in the gospel field, she
would have been a worthy successor to Clara,
Mahalia, and the other gospel giants whose
material the teenage Aretha so effortlessly inhab
ited. "I ha J to sing," is as close as she has come
to explaining her motivation, an imperative she
has never burdened with external definition. We
met her in church, but she became a part of our
entire lives.
John Hammond, who signed Aretha to
Columbia, said she was "an untutored genius,
the best voice I've heard since Billie Holiday".
Her much-maligned CBS recordings may not
have made her a household name, but they
showed her to be a jazz, blues and pop vocalist
fully capable of living up to Hammond's extrava
gant praise. (Or can praise be extravagant if it's
true?) Just compare the 1960 Today I Sing The
Blues to the version cut eight years later at her
zenith. The latter has all the proper soul trim
mings, not least of them Aretha's own piano,
but the singer of the original knows everything
about this song that the 1968 Queen of Soul
does. She didn't become a phenomenon until
she arrived at Atlantic, but she became an artist
every time she opened her mouth to sing.
In that light, her late '60s recordings are
almost more a triumph of context than an artis
tic breakthrough. Atlantic Records, Jerry Wexler,
Muscle Shoals musicians, songs like I Never
Loved A Man (The Way I Love You) - the per
fect convergence of these elements still produces
shivers after 30 years. And when rhythm & blues
is accorded the full critical respect of jazz, her
rhythmic relationship with saxophonist King
Curtis may be recognised as an R&B equivalent
of Billie Holiday and Lester Young. Treatises
have been written on the empowerment aspect
of Respect, but the real source of the strength is
not Otis Redding's words but Aretha's voice.
She's as soulful singing Lerner & Loewe as Penn
& Oldham, she's a.s comfortable covering
? & The Mysterians as Sam Cooke. As Peter
Guralnick put it, "all one can say is that Aretha is
so Aretha — in her emotional tone, her touch and
intonation, in her unprompted leaps of notes
and faith, the way she fractures syllables and elic
its new meaning — that no other description will
do." So overriding is her personality that she can
tackle instant classics like Young Gifted And
Black, Bridge Over Troubled Water and Let It
Be and, in the shadow of their own success,
completely redefine them.
Her 1998 album A Rose Is Still A Rose, the
jewel of her 18-year association with Clivc
Davis, is distinguished by collaborations with
new production royalty Lauryn Hill, Puffy
Combs and Jermaine
Dupri, but the most dis
tinctive thing about any of
the tracks remains the
voice of Aretha Franklin.
It towers over producers,
genres, trends and time.
Hammond's "untutored
genius" is a nifty romantic
image, but it ignores the
the sustained hard work
necessary to have achieved
her depth of self-knowl
edge, and the fearlessness
with which she has exer
cised it. She could be resting comfortably atop
her mountain of laurels, yet she continues to
find new ways to challenge. At the Grammys
this year, she stepped in when Luciano
Pavarotti fell ill and, with only a few minutes of
backstage prep, sang Puccini's demanding aria
Nessun Donna live on the international tele
cast. And to accommodate the 72-piece
orchestra, she sang it in Pavarotti's keyl Have
we known another voice capable of surprising
and thrilling us like this in its fifth professional
decade? And what thrills can this remarkable
woman have in store for us? Reverend C.L.
Franklin was known as 'The Million Dollar
Voice,' but the worth of his daughter Aretha's
is clearly beyond computer. Ben EJmonJs
Born: March 25, 1942
Sublime moment: The immortal "R-E-S-P-E-
C-T, find out what it means to me" section at
1.48 of Respect. You know it like you know
your own name, making it the ultimate
telegraphed punch. Yet it still connects, every
time (/ Never LoveJ A Man The Way I Love You,
Atlantic 1967)
Recommended: Queen Of Soul — The Atlantic
RecorJings (Atlantic/Rhino 1992)
Marking her election as the
world's greatest singer, Aretha
Franklin speaks to Ben Edmonds.
Congratulations on being selected the
Number 1 singer by your peers.
Thank you. That is st> stunning... I'm
blown away.
Do you remember how music first came into
your life?
1 can't remember a time in our home
when I wasn't surrounded by it. Myfather,
the Reverend C.L. Franklin, was a music
lover and it was always a part of our
atmosphere. Records on the phonograph,
radios always on and tuned to different
stations, my sister taking piano lessons in
the living room; it was everywhere.
Wasn't there also lots of first-hand exposure
to musical people?
Because of the role music played in my
father's church, there were always musi
cians and singers coming and going.
Because of my father's standing in the
community, some of the most important
and respected talents of the day walked
through our front door.
What, or who, inspired you to take up music
yourself?
I'd have to say it was the Reverend James
Cleveland. My father was a regular visitor
to churches in Chicago, and became
aware of James there. He invited him to
Detroit to work with the senior and the
young adult choirs of our church. I can
remember him playing different things
and singing with his sister. Now, James
has sung with a lot of different people, and
has done a lot of fabulous and wonderful
things musically, but I have always felt that
the four-piece group he had with his sister
at this time was the best. How I loved that
little quartet! I was really inspired by his
piano stylings and the way he could
summon emotion with his voice.
Who influenced you as a young singer?
I would have to say Clara Ward and the
Ward Singers. I just loved her voice, her
delivery, everything about her. The group
was quite colourful, and I've never heard
anybody sing as well. Marion Williams,
Frances Steadman, my goodness. But
Clara in particular, who was also the vocal
arranger. Clara sang at a family funeral,
Peace In The Valley as I recall. She
became so moved by the spirit in her per
formance that she grabbed the hat off her
head and threw it to the ground! I was
blown away by that. I wanted to feel that
level of involvement and intensity in my
own singing.
Did she teach you anything about the art of
singing?
Nothing at all, except what I learned by
her example and then figured out for
myself. I was just a huge fan of hers, and
 THE lOO GREATEST SINGERS OF ALL TIME
+W whenever The Clara
Wa r d S i n g e r s c a m e t o
Detroit you better believe
I was there to hear them!
But we never talked music or
singing or any of that.
Was it the same with Mahalia Jackson,
another frequent visitor to the Franklin
household?
Yes. She was another one from Chicago,
and stayed with us when she'd come to
sing at my father's church. Yes, hers was
another voice that carried me away. But
when it came to music, no advice
was sought and none was given.
Don't get me wrong: all these people
could see I was in love with music.
But this was not our relationship.
Kitchen talk, I'd call it, the kinds of
things the girls talk about when
they're cooking. I benefited beyond
words by hearing Mahalia Jackson
sing, but it was not something we
ever discussed. The best help people
gave me as a singer was just by being
s u p p o r t i v e o f m e p e r s o n a l l y, f o r
which I am eternally grateful.
Unlike many singers from a gospel
background, you never seem to have
been shielded from secular music.
Oh no, we were exposed to all of it.
As a young teenager, I listened to all
kinds of things. I was a fan of Frankie
Lymon And The Teenagers, Clyde
M c P h a t t e r, L a Ve r n B a k e r, T h e
Clovers, The Drifters, The
Flamingos, people like that. Of
course Ruth Brown, who just cut
through everything else on the radio. Isn't
i.t interesting how many of them were
Atlantic recording artists?
Sam Cooke was also a family friend. Did
watching his change from gospel to
secular music have an impact on you?
Absolutely, yes. Because... just as I lis
tened to everything, I saw no reason that I
shouldn't sing everything also. And I felt
that if Sam could be successful at it, per
haps I could too. There didn't seem to be
anything that Sam couldn't do with that
voice of his. I will never forget the day he
came to our house and played a pressing
of You Send Me before it was released. We
knew he was going to be successful in
making the change.
You mentioned your sister's piano lessons.
Did you have them also?
Very briefly. I showed an interest in it when
I was quite young, around eight, but I'm
afraid I wasn't a very receptive student.
After one or two lessons I wasn't getting
TH E QU EEN'S SU BJ ECTS The following 57 singers voted for Aretha:
Vicki Anderson, Mark Arm, P.P. Arnold, Madeline Bell, Maggie Bell, Bev Bivens, Delaney Bramlett, Billy
Burnette, Jerry Butler, Terry Caliier, Paul Carrack, Vic Chesnutt, Holly Cole, Paula Cole, Ron Dante, Neil
Finn, Gabby Glaser, James Grant, Ben Harper, Bobby Hatfield, Jon Hendricks, Robyn Hitchcock, Noddy
Holder, Mark Hollis, Brenda Holloway, Chuck Jackson, Tommy James, Tom Jones, Ben E, King, Robert
Lamm, Huey Lewis, ShaznayT. Lewis, Carmen Lundy, Cerys Matthews, Curtis Mayfield, Joe McAlinden,
Meat Loaf, Bill Medley, Scott Morgan, Graham Nash, Graham Parker, John Power, Question Mark, Eddi
Reader, Martha Reeves, Paul Rodgers, Henry Rollins, Boz Scaggs, Chris Smither, Billy Squier, Levi
Stubbs, Irma Thomas, Tanita Tikaram, Ruby Turner, Jeff Tweedy, Sal Valentino, Andre Williams.
what I was looking for and refused any
more instruction. When I was maybe 13, I
sat down and started to seriously figure it
out. I can play by ear, so I pretty much
taught myself.
Do you subscribe to Jerry Wexler's theory
that you sing better seated at the piano?
No, not necessarily. He probably thinks
that because on so many of our recordings
together I happened to be at the piano.
I'm just guessing. But if you look back,
you'll see that I played the piano on quite
a few of my Columbia recordings as well.
M P * '
Many people are under the impression that
you were miscast or somehow misused
during your Columbia stay. Do you agree?
Oh no, no, no. No. Quite to the contrary.
I think it was a fabulous beginning, and
an incredible learning experience. There
are a lot of people who remember those
records fondly; they talk to me about
them all the time.
My personal favourite from that period is
Unforgettable, your tribute to the great
Dinah Washington. Obviously an
inspiration; she was a family friend too?
She was friendly with my father, though I'm
sorry to say that I never got to know her as
well as I would have liked. But in doing the
songs for that album- which is also one of
my favourites- I certainly felt closer to her.
I was not attempting to emulate her, nor
trying to 'redefine' her music or anything
like that. I just sang the songs and trusted
that people would take how I felt about her
from that. I'm thrilled whenever someone
tells me that they discovered Dinah
Washington through my album.
When you first started recording, was there
anything you had to learn about how to
sing in the studio environment?
No. You sing whatever you sing wherever.
When you hear a song, are you listening for
the lyric or melody initially?
I listen for, um... both. Really, when a song
comes on the radio I listen like any other
music fan. What I hear first is whatever the
strength of that particular song may be.
Sometimes the melody, sometimes a lyric, or
it may be something about the way the
music is presented. But for me to con
sider singing a song, I have to feel it in a
more personal way. It has to touch me.
Have any of the producers you've worked
with done anything especially
different working with your vocals?
No, not really. I just went into the
booth and they sat there and did their
thing. They listened, they made their
comments, and we rolled on. I made
mine, they made theirs, I made mine.
You're known to be kind of a shy person,
but on the other hand...
I'm famous for being shy?
Yes.
No! I'm not... I don't have a reputa
tion for being shy. In what-35 years?
- I've never heard that.
Well, after seeing your Grammy
performance, stepping in for
Pavarotti, I couldn't believe the shy
part. Did you ever think, "What am I
doing out here singing opera?"
Absolutely not.
So you had complete confidence that you
could pull off this difficult aria?
Well, I wouldn't say complete confidence.
I had performed it earlier that week. It was
a new situation and a scenario we could
not have foreseen, but we came together
as quickly as we could, and did what we
could do with it. What we had to do with it.
Can we expect to see more of this in future?
Absolutely. In fact, I just recorded Nessun
Dorma a few nights ago. So that's in the
can, as they say. I think I'm going to do an
entire album of arias, and hopefully that
is going to launch my own record label,
World Class Records.
Are you still involved with gospel music?
I have been involved with some Gospel
Crusade For Aids benefits that we've done
at Lincoln Center in New York with Bobby
Jones, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and others.
And some things that I've been doing at
the New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit
at Christmas time, gospel productions
that I produce and put together and have
had recorded. I will always be involved with
gospel. Some have said that you can hear
the gospel in my voice regardless of what
I'm singing. I suppose that's true, but I like
taking it all the way back to the church every
now and again. This is where I come from,
my deepest roots.
 I
All Time were chosen by the panel of singers
THE MOJO
listed below.
100 Each
GREATEST
picked their
SINGERS
10 favourite
OF
WIN A
vocalists; the number of votes cast for each singer
determined their ranking. MOJO's only input was
to order the singers, mostly in the bottom 16, who
SHURE MIC!
tied with the same number of votes. A special
thanks to our voting panel for their efforts.
BUBBLING UNDER:
Enrico Caruso, Annie Lennox, Barbra Streisand, Bob
Seger, Bobby Darin, Brook Benton, Chaka Khan, Charlie
Rich, Claude Jeter, Dolly Parton, Don Henley, Frankie
Miller, Gene Vincent, James Ingram, Jessye Norman,
John Fogerty, Laura Nyro, Lightnin' Hopkins, Lucinda
Williams, Freddie Mercury, Ruth Brown, Simon And
Garfunkel, Tom Waits, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson,
Wilson Pickett, Emmylou Harris.

THEY WUZ ROBBED:

Some MOJO vocal faves, sadly absent here:
Johnny Cash, Aaron Neville, Ann Peebles, Curtis
Mayfield, Jerry Butler, Ronald Isley, Irma Thomas,
Sandy Denny, Little Jimmy Scott, Rickie Lee Jones,
Jimmy Cliff, John Martyn, Jimmy Reed, Candi Staton,
Maria McKee, Les Voix Bulgares, Alison Krauss.

Voters: Ryan Adams, Marc Almond, Vicki Anderson, Mark

Arm, PR Arnold, Marty Balin, Madeline Bell, Maggie Bell, Tony
Bennett, Bev Bivens, Colin Blunstone, Gary US Bonds, Simon
Bonny, Pat Boone, Delaney Bramlett, Gary Brooker, Greg
Brown, Ian Brown, Eric Burdon, Billy Burnette, Rocky
Burnette, R.L. Burnside, Jerry Butler, Bobby Byrd, David
Byrne, JJ Cale, Terry Callier, Eric Carmen, Paul Carrack, Guy
Chadwick, Otis Clay, Vic Chesnutt, Lou Christie, Holly Cole,
Paula Cole, Chris Collingwood, Edwyn Collins, Alice Cooper,
Marshall Crenshaw, Sarah Cracknel], Ron Dante, Jesse Dayton,
Kelli Dayton, Rick Derringer, Michael Des Barres, Willy De
Ville, Dion DiMucci, Francis Dunnery, Steve Earle, Dennis
Edwards, Mark Eitzel, Cesaria Evora, Fabian, Chris Farlowe,
Marianne Faithfull, Neil Finn, John Flansburgh, Elizabeth Fraser,
David Gates, Gabby Glaser, Greg Graffin, James Grant, Clive
Gregson, Sammy Hagar, Ben Harper, Debbie Harry, Bobby
Hatfield, Jon Hendricks, Kristin Hersh, David Hidalgo, Robyn MIFFED THERE'S NO MORRISSEY? GRIEVING FOR LEMMY?
Hitchcock, Susanna Hoffs, Noddy Holder, Mark Hollis, Brenda Tell us about your All Time favourite vocal moment and you could win
the Shure microphone pictured on our cover.
Holloway, Ian Hunter, Danny Hutton, Chuck Jackson, Wanda Send us your own list of the 10 Greatest Singers Of All Time — you
Jackson, Etta James, Tommy James, Stephan Jenkins, Joan Jett, don't have to put them in order, but you do have to write 250 words
David Johansen, Stephen Jones, Tom Jones, Martyn Joseph, Ira on the singer you feel most deserved inclusion in our list, but didn't
Kaplan, John Kay, Howard Kaylan, Al Kooper, Diana Krall, Ben make the Top 100. We want you to write about their Greatest Vocal
E King, Nick Laird, Robert Lamm, Huey Lewis, Shaznay T Moment, whether it was intimate jazz crooning, or a full-blown
Lewis, Yungchen Lhamo, Roy Loney, Gary Louris, Carmen rock'n'roll roar. The best entry, in the editor's opinion, will win the
Lundy, Kirsty MacColl, Shirley Manson, Claire Martin, Cerys Shure 5SSH mic — an icon of die microphone world, used by everyone
Matthews, Curtis Mayfield, Joe McAlinden, Roger McGuinn, from Billie Holiday to Johnny Rotten.
Maria McKee, Jacqui McShee, Meat Loaf, Bill Medley, Sam Send your entries to MOJO VOCAL GREATS, Mappin House, 4
Moore, Scott Morgan, Graham Nash, Graham Parker, Van Dyke Winsley Street, London W1N 7AR, to reach us by November 15.
Parks, Andy Partridge, Grant Lee Phillips, Sam Phillips, Ray You can also fax your entries on 0171 312 8296, or email them
Price, Vicki Price, Robert Plant, John Power, Question Mark, to mojo@ecm.emap.com
Joey Ramone, Eddi Reader, Martha Reeves, Emitt Rhodes,
Louise Rhodes, Scott Richardson, Robbie Robertson, Paul
Rodgers, Henry Rollins, Darius Rucker, Mitch Ryder, Doug
Sahm, Boz Scaggs, Tommy Scott, Mike Scott, John Sebastian, Contributors: Martin Aston, Johnny Black, Stanley Booth, Geoff
Ron Sexsmith, Duncan Shiek, Jane Siberry, Sice, Skin, TV Brown, Donald Clarke, Fred Dellar, Bill DeMain, Paul Du Noyer,
Smith, Chris Smither, Phoebe Snow, Billy Squier, Rod Stewart, Dawn Eden, Ben Edmonds, Mark Ellen, Colin Escott, Mick Farren,
Levi Stubbs, June Tabor, Barry Tashian, B.J. Thomas, David Ben Fisher, Andv Gill, Charlie Gillett, Robert Gordon, John Harris,
Thomas, Irma Thomas, Tanita Tikaram, Maggie Turner, Ruby Barney Hoskyns, Chris Ingham, Jim Irvin, Colin Irwin, James McNair,
Jackie Montague, Tony Russell, Joel Selvin, Sylvie Simmons, Mat Snow,
Turner, Shania Twain, Jeff Tweedy, Dwight Twilley, Midge Lire, Phil Sutcliffe, Jeff Tamarkin, David Toop, Dave Thompson (DT), Paul
Sal Valentino, Madeline Vaughan, Mark Volman, Kim Weston,
Trynka, Don Waller, Ed Ward. MOJO's 100 Greatest singers was com
Andre Williams, Dar Williams, Robbie Williams, Victoria
piled and edited by Paul Trynka, assisted by Jackie Montague, Gina
Williams, Brian Wilson, Bobbv Womack, Robert Wvatt. Fincgan, Scott Thompson and Ben Edmonds.

Wi
 our booty, ir
So disco sucked, did it? Explain this extended mix of fabulous,
butt-bothering grooves tben. By Barney Hoskyns.
YOWSAH, YOWSAH, Shame, Shame (1974) became sizeable hits. Exposure's Ten Percent, the first commercially
yowsah. Twenty years after the George McCrae's Rock Your Baby went all the way available 12-inch single. The impact of Eurodisco
dizzy heights of Discomania, the monster to Number 1, as did Van McCoy's The Hustle, a was already being felt in Love To Love You Baby, a
is back in our midst — in movies like Paul Thomas track based on a dance beat formerly known onlv 17-minute orgasmathon created in Munich by
Anderson's Boogie Nights, Whit Stillman's The to the habitues of Latin clubs in the South Bronx. producer Giorgio Moroder and a former cast
Last Days Of Disco and Mark Christopher's 54; The record companies began servicing 12-inch member of Hair. Following in their wake came
in a spate of dance compilations and retro pro "disco discs" to jocks, posting scouts in clubs to Frenchmen Ccrrone and Alec Costadinos and
ductions; and in the general genuflection before check out the street reaction to records. In 1975, kraut-disko merchants Silver Convention.
'70s style and mores. a 15-minute version of Gloria Gaynor's Never Can In June 1976, Nik Cohn's groundbreaking
Disco is back despite the stigma attached to Say Goodbye became disco's first true mega-mix, story Tribal Rites Of The New Saturday Night
everything it stood for: its glittery' gaudiness, its and in early '76 Salsoul released Double identified this burgeoning American cult: at year's
plastic production values, its pounding monotony.
Despite or, perhaps, because of. It's back because
we remain fascinated by the innocent hedonism
of late '70s America — an America getting over
Vietnam and Watergate, wrestling with inflation
and oil boycotts, searching for ways to escape.
While punk reigned in Jubilee Britain, America
caught Saturday night fever. "In the '70s, people
simply practised what they'd preached in the
'60s," says Mark Christopher. "It was a time of
sexual liberation, when cocaine was supposedly
non-addictive. No one knew the price they would
later pay."
Night fever was nothing new: it went all the
way back to the "dancing madness" of the Middle
Ages. The concept of le Jiscotheque, on the other
hand, wasn't born 'til the 1950s, when a bunch of
sailors cavorted one night in a Marseille waterfront
bar to a box of 78s thev'd hauled over the ocean
from America. When they left the records behind,
the bar owners established a "disc-o-theque" —
literally, "record library" — and the idea swiftly
spread to Paris, London and New York (where
Oleg Cassini opened Le Club in the early '60s).
Minorities — racial, sexual — had always
sweated the night away in airless lofts and subter
ranean caverns: The Twist was just one of many
dances that originated in New York's black and
Latin gay communities. If rock inflicted major
damage on '60s dance culture, rhythm returned
at the turn of the decade. Modern disco music was
spawned in gay clubs in New York, the biggest
being Le Jardin, located in the basement of a sleazy
Times Square hotel called The Diplomat. When
hip straights infiltrated Le Jardin, the disco era was
under way.
A new breed of DJ fashioned epic, seamless
tracks from extended versions of Papa Was A
Rolling Stone and Theme From Shaft, cutting
between turntables, weaving records together,
tweaking the sound. Proto-disco classics like
Cameroonian bandleader Manu Dibango's Soul
Makossa (1973) and Shirley & Co.'s Shame,

90 MOJO