Best Singer of All Time is...

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On 8/22/2020 at 9:01 PM, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

What's your vote for the best singer or vocalist of all time, and why? One male, one female.

 

It could be from any time or any genre. Doesn't have to be an audiophile quality recording.

Gee, that’s difficult. For a male singer, Frank Sinatra comes to mind, but so does Bing Crosby. For a female singer, It’s even more difficult. I’ve always thought that Joan Baez was great, but then so was Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Dinah Washington, Sylvia Tyson, Shirley Bassey, etc.
Of course, this is for pop singers. For opera, it’s Pavoratti, and probably Anna Netrebko.

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20 hours ago, PYP said:

 

This reminds me of one of the greatest duets:  Ella (Fitzgerald) and Louis (Armstrong).  

Well, Louis Armstrong did have a unique voice all right. Not sure what he did was considered “singing“, though. OTOH, it was fun to listen to him.

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8 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

Yeah but for me there is more to a great singer than technical chops (not that I am implying that is your intention George). I think the basic requirement is to sing in tune but after that I go for tone and originality. It may be a bit different for opera singers but even then, there appears to be an endless amount of cookie-cutter voices or copycats in just about every genre.

That’s because in opera, the type of voice and singing is proscribed by the composer. There are certain things that must be done in a certain way. For example (and not opera related) would be a production of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” done in motorcycle outfits. That would be so jarringly wrong as to make the play meaningless. In some things there is just no room for that kind individual expressionism.

8 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

So while I have heard it argued many times that Bob Dylan was a terrible "singer" I think he has a great original voice. That said, I really don't listen much to his music. I think there are quite a few that fit into this category and especially in pop or rock. As soon I hear James Taylor's voice I instantly like it. I wouldn't call him a great singer by any stretch. It's about the tone, the mannerisms, the phrasing and all the little quirks that go into make his voice individual and make his personality and charisma shine through. If it becomes more relatable, more personal, it becomes more emotionally convincing for me. I go full circle and this is why I think Frank was so good because he had such a great charismatic one-off voice and was a great singer, technically and otherwise.

 Oh we’re talking taste here now. I like some of Dylan’s songs such as “Tomorrow is a Long Time”. It’s a gorgeous song, but to me, not with Dylan singing it. However, with Ian and Sylvia singing it, it’s beautiful. I personally cannot stand to listen to Dylan and I never have. I recall a spoof of Dylan done by Mad Magazine back in the‘60’s In which a Dylan record was “reviewed”. The review mentioned that Dylan actually produces two musical notes; one on side A and another on side B. 🤪

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8 hours ago, PYP said:

 

 I think that is a common reaction, however, I seemed to remember that several singers, including Frank Sinatra, thought Louis could sing:  

 

"As early as 1924, Armstrong was summarily dismissed by bandleader Fletcher Henderson when he asked to sing on a record.

Henderson's disparaging comments were neither the first nor the last Armstrong would hear about his singing. Ironically, he soon became the central singer in jazz and pop history. His gritty tenor mirrored his trumpet style and influenced practically every singer in pop and jazz. Artists including Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sarah Vaughan deeply admired Armstrong's singing and used his example to mold their own vocal styles."

 

On Ella and Louis, the juxtaposition of the fluid and the gritty delivery is just a wonderful stew.  I especially like when Ella imitates his singing.  You can "hear" them smiling at each other in appreciation of their respective talents.  

Well, technically, of course he was “singing“. And I enjoy him, but I wouldn’t want to hear him try “Nessun Dorma“.😉

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4 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

Yes but it's what he does with those two notes that a lesser singer with a thousand 'runs' could not 😜

If you mean he is unique, I’ll agree. Still can do without his singing, though.

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4 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

or Frank Sinatra

Of course. Although Frank’s rendition of “Old Man River” is vastly different from William Warfield’s, It’s just as effective even though the song was written for an operatic bass-baritone and Frankie wasn’t that!

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9 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

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Hope my embedding works.  First ever try!

 

Ellas's voice was close to perfect.  The pitch, tone, held notes, non-excessive vibrato (think Sarah Vaughan, though I also love her), just enough embellishment without the modern "vocal gymnastics"/technique for technique's sake that I hear.  Billie Holiday had the phrasing, oh my (like Frank!), but certainly not the voice.  In general, though, she knocks me out more.

I agree about Ella and Sarah Vaughan. I also loved to hear Dinah Washington sing.  She was “unforgettable”. 

Quote

 

I wish I could find the documentary on Louis' singing I saw years ago.  Historical context is important in this.  If you can think of non-classical singing before him in the 20's (wish I could demonstrate), you could see.  What he started was completely unique, just like his trumpet playing, and influences everything we have heard in non-classical since.

 

Sinatra called Tony Bennett the greatest singer.  I'll take Sinatra.

 

Rock:  Layne Staley!

 

 

Bill

Well, Tony Bennett May have had a better singing voice than Sinatra, but Sinatra’s talent was in his phrasing and the way he “wrapped his voice around a lyric”. And all I have to say about Louis Armstrong is that he was a National Treasure.

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3 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

As much as I can enjoy Bing Crosby singing and he does have a unique voice, for me personally, he wouldn't make my top 10 list. I heard rumours that he was not such a nice fellow but I am not necessarily believing them. He may have just been a complex individual. Where I absolutely adore him is in the road movies with Bob Hope. I think their chemistry and comedic timing is just sheer genius. I even like the singing! I freely admit that there is probably a larger dollop of nostalgia in that assessment. I remember as a boy doing a 'Ferris Bueller' on my parents and staying home watching Bob Hope and Bing Crosby get up to shenanigans on the road to some new exotic location!

About Bing’s personality. In the hills behind Stanford University, there used to be a “road house” that was, originally, a stage coach stop In the 1850’s. I can’t recall what they called the place, but I used to go there when I first moved to the Palo Alto CA area. They had cheap beer, and you could always find a stimulating conversation there as it was a hangout for Stanford students. One Friday evening, a friend and I were in there, and we noticed a gaggle of people gathered in a knot all around the bar. I couldn’t tell what the fascination was, but in the center of it all, I saw the top of a straw “pork-pie” fedora. So we mosey’d over to where everyone was gathered. When we got closer, I saw that the hat belonged to none-other than Bing Crosby. He was holding forth, telling stories about Hollywood, and some of the many stars he worked with, including (naturally) Bob Hope. We listened as Bing continued to drink and get a bit tipsy. Eventually, the throng thinned out and my friend and I found ourselves talking to Bing by ourselves. I asked him about something I had long noticed about his voice and always wondered about. In the early thirties, his voice was almost a tenor, but, by the late thirties it was a baritone. So I asked him how that happened. He lit up like a Christmas tree at that question (well, he was already partially lit) and told us that he had had a throat operation in (I believe he said 1935, but don’t quote me) and was told by the doctor not to try to speak for about 6 months. The doc also told him that his singing career was probably over, as the operation involved his larynx. Well, he followed the doctor’s advice and only whispered for about half a year. When the doc told him to try to speak, he found that his voice pitch had dropped an entire register. On his way home in his Packard, he tried singing and found that he could sing as well as ever, only in a lower register. He immediately called his Decca records producer and booked a recording session. The record that came from that session as “Deep Purple” and it was the first with his “new voice”. It became a big hit, world-wide (even the Germans liked him. They called him “Der Bingle”) and he was apprehensive that his fans wouldn’t accept his deeper voice.He needn’t have worried, as he said that it gave his career a big boost because the tenor crooner had fallen out of style and baritone singers like Tony Martin were becoming popular.

From that time on, anytime I was at that place (sure wish that I could remember it’s name. I seemed to recall it was an Italian name, but that’s as close as I can come to it, at this time.) at the same time as Crosby, he’d come over and sit with me. I thought he was a very friendly guy. He lived in Hillsborough, just a few miles up the San Francisco Peninsula from this Stanford hangout (Ernie Ford lived there too). He said that he enjoyed the company of young people that’s why he came to that place. I never got the sense that he was not a “nice fellow” or that he was stuck-up or self important like many celebrities seem to be. Of course, I can certainly understand why many celebrities come across as stand-offish. Privacy is thin on the ground when you are famous and everybody recognizes you whenever you go out in public.

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2 hours ago, JoeWhip said:

I wish I looked that good in 2016!

Hell, I wished that I looked that good EVER! My dad looked like a movie star when he was young, but I, unfortunately, did not inherit his great looks. I inherited my mom’s mediocre looks, with a dash of the “ugly stick” thrown in for good measure.. 

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10 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

George- wonderful reference to "Old Man River."  My favorite version:

 

 

 

Here’s my favorite:

Don’t get me wrong, I like Frankie’s version too, but this one hits me where I live. When I was in college, Columbia Records put out a “Showboat” revival cast album that had Warfield reprise his movie role. That version brings me to tears. Unfortunately, the record was stolen from my dorm room and I don’t believe Sony has released it on CD.

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16 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

I guess celebrities are just like everybody else except more talented in certain areas. They laugh and cry at the same things, need to socialise and connect with people and so forth. They have the additional challenge of balancing the side effect of, and in some cases need for, recognition with the need for privacy. So I suppose I can be in some ways grateful that my extraordinary talents go completely unnoticed by the world🤣

 

What a fantastic story ! Thanks for sharing.

You aren’t alone. My talents go unnoticed by the world too.😢

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2 hours ago, daverich4 said:

The Alpine Inn

 

That’s what it’s called now. During the time that I am talking about and for many decades going back to the early part of the 20th Century when it was a Stanford University hangout, it had another name. But thanks to you, I was able to use “Alpine Inn“ as a starting place to find what it used to be called. It was Rositties, which people used to pronounce as “Rozot-eez”. Again, many thanks. It was driving me crazy (not a long drive under the best of circumstances).

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19 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

I guess celebrities are just like everybody else except more talented in certain areas. They laugh and cry at the same things, need to socialise and connect with people and so forth. They have the additional challenge of balancing the side effect of, and in some cases need for, recognition with the need for privacy. So I suppose I can be in some ways grateful that my extraordinary talents go completely unnoticed by the world🤣

 

What a fantastic story ! Thanks for sharing.

One final word on the subject. I believe that Crosby attained his reputation for being a not so nice guy due to a book one of his sons by his first wife Dixie Lee wrote about what a terrible father and person he was. I don’t recall which one of his four sons wrote the book, but apparently he was “too busy” during his first marriage, to be a parent (Dixie Lee Crosby died, they did not divorce). His second wife, Kathy Crosby (the shrunken princess in the film “The Second Voyage of Sinbad” with Kerwin Mathews) gave him two more kids, and this time, apparently, he doted on them (according to an interview I saw once with his son from his second marriage).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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6 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

Wow John, we seem to be in disagreement today.

 

I love Karen Carpenter and while I think she has a naturally great voice it is far from natural. I believe, and to my ears, it was crafted and produced to within an inch of her life literally. If I am correct, she had an obsessive-compulsive disorder which carried over into her singing. It is too polished and preened to be described as "natural".

 

There are no perfect recordings of anybody. Unlike so many other pop artists there are in my opinion quite a few very listenable tracks from the carpenters. Karen is there embodied like a hologram (not as good as being there at her venue but still there is more "there" there in your living room).

She did have a pleasant voice, but the songs that she sang with her brother were banal beyond belief. Still, the way she died was a real tragedy, and a useless death. 

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4 hours ago, Albrecht said:

 

Subject is about great singers: not being remembered. Might be your definition that a great singer may HAVE to be popular/historical figure/remembered. That's cool: i respect it. I don't expect anyone to agree with anyone else's definition of what constitutes great art, or a great singer.... Do you think that there have been some great singers who have never been recorded and or great singers who've been "lost" to history?

Russ Colombo comes to mind as a very popular crooner (with a great voice) in his day who has been “lost to history“. To a lesser extent, I would add Dick Haymes. Helen Forest and Jane Froman, etc.

 

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3 minutes ago, photonman said:

 

I would say that Chris Cornell was much bedder but Eddie had a bedder agent.  Sadly, Chris had a tragic end like many of his peers.  When Chris started to sing this crazy strong unbelievably powerful voice just bellows from his mouth, effortlessly like Karen Carpenter's.  Totally different genres but still pretty amazing.  

 

To the OP this is a really fun thread, thanks for starting it.  I mean there are so many unique voices and singers out there and it is impossible to say who is the best.

 

 

Crosby’s singing was often said to be effortless as was Perry Como’s. One singer from the 1960’s that always thought had an incredible range which he seemed to use effortlessly was Roy Orbison. 

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On 8/28/2020 at 10:53 AM, Albrecht said:

Yeah.. 

 

It's all art, all subjective, and means different things to different people... Britney Spears is the same as Mozart is the same as Barry Manilow is the same as Miles Davis....

 

Until you start laying down specific criteria like, - "who is the best non-rock, male-singer, who writes their own songs," - the only "value" of anyone's opinion is exclusively to themselves, and no one should expect that it is shared. 

 

One can argue that Phil Collins is a better singer TECHNICALLY than Peter Gabriel. But many might argue that Peter Gabriel has a more "expressively unique" voice. 

 

No criticism intended to the OP, - it's a fun exercise to read what people think: and cool to read what folks like and why. FWIW, as a songwriter and musician, - I am always interested in the choices that writers/musicians make; like how Richard Carpenter who co-wrote syrupy pop songs, - often would reach back and hit a flattened D to add an element of darkness to the bubblegum....

 

And sure, - Frank Sinatra, - was a below average talent that has nothing of value to bring to the table: it's only art and ultimately, - universalizably valueless. 

You are right. This is extremely subjective and it mostly revolves around personal criteria. For instance, I don’t value Britaney Spears or Barry Manilow, or Peter Gabriel, or for that matter, John Lennon, Micheal Jackson or Mick Jagger, as singers because they do not meet my criteria for a vocalist. Sinatra does, Crosby does, William Warfield does, as does Pavarotti, Ella Fitzgerald, And Dinah Washington (Does anyone here remember Minnie Ripperton, a true coloratura soprano?).
But I certainly don’t agree with you that art is universally valueless. Art is probably the only human endeavor that does have value, lasting value! And I truly hope that you were being facetious with that comment!

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17 hours ago, ARQuint said:

It's odd that (other than Sam Ramey) nobody is listing what, for lack of a better term, are referred to as "classically-trained voices". If opera and art song are musical genres you care about, you'll have some strong opinions. Despite the OP's parameter that recording quality doesn't matter, I'm reluctant to name singers with voices documented only with primitive recording methodology—Caruso, Melba, etc. So, for me, how about four, one for each major voice type? As with non-classical singers, I feel choices should be made based on three metrics: the "God-given" instrument, technique, and musical intelligence. All are gone but there's ample recorded evidence of their artistry.

 

Soprano: Joan Sutherland

Alto: Marian Anderson

Tenor: Luciano Pavarotti

Baritone: Dietrich Fisher-Dieskau

Agree. 100%! A little known fact, Fisher-Dieskau has the largest discography of any recording artist in history. The sheer number of albums that guy recorded over his lifetime is truly staggering. Last time I saw the number it was in the hundreds. I wonder how many are still available as CD reissues today?

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3 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I must disagree. Someone’s opinion that Mozart is better than Britney is fine, but there’s no such thing as objectively better in art. 

While you are right. Humanity’s collective regard for any art or artist forms the hierarchy that ranks both. That ranking puts Mozart higher than Britany Spears (and most everybody else), so basically we grow up being told that a Bach,  a Beethoven, and a Mozart represent the highest attainment of Western culture. - even if personally, many of us don’t appreciate their music and some of us have never heard any of their work, we know the names, and we know that they are considered the pinnacle of our civilization.

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21 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Hi George, I definitely hear you on this one but I get heebie jeebies thinking about taste makers deciding which art is better. I’m willing to bet we all know some artists that are far better, in our opinions, than those who got popular, but these guys remained mostly unknown. 
 

Album tracks are often better than officially released tracks as well. 

It really doesn’t matter if we are comfortable with this “collective taste“ or not. These decisions are made for us, decisions about greatness, whether it’s art, artists or famous people are made by those who set themselves up as the arbiters of what’s good and what’s not. For instance, our school systems dry clean our national heroes for us almost to the point of canonization. We grow up in the US believing that, for instance, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford were gods. Now we find out that Edison was a tireless self-promoter, plagiarist, charlatan and all around unpleasant fellow who passed off the work of others (like Tesla) as his own. Then there’s the real Henry Ford who was a viscous anti-Semite who blamed the Jews for all the evil and trouble in the world and who hired thugs to keep the unions out of his company by any means at their disposal, including physical violence!
While there is no doubt that the “gods of classical music“ were geniuses, the fact that they are still remembered, still performed, hundreds of years after they are gone, is probably as much a product of the art establishment’s regard for these people, as it is of the quality of their bodies of work.

Now, I tend to agree with those who praise the work of the classical European composers (and their American counterparts), and I believe that they deserve their reputations, but I disagree with those who use the longevity of their bodies of work as proof of their superiority over contemporary artist/performers. We don’t (and can’t) know how future generations will view the music of the 20th and 21st centuries. For all we know, Snoop Dog or Micheal Jackson will be hailed, 200 years hence, as the Mozarts of their time (although, personally, I hope not)! But entropy is real and one can watch the decline in the quality of popular music over the last century. We went from the pop songs of Gershwin and Cole Porter and performers like Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman to rap and hip-hop which seem to dissect music down to it’s two basic elements, the lyrics (doggerel poetry) and a beat. While it’s certainly not my cup of tea (by any stretch of the imagination), many millions of the younger generation seem to like it a lot (otherwise it wouldn’t be “popular” by definition). The fact that people like me can’t and/or don’t appreciate it as art, is neither here nor there, and it has always been that way.

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On 8/30/2020 at 7:53 PM, fas42 said:

There are Fiats ... and then there are Fiats ...

 

Indeed there are...

 

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3 hours ago, audiobomber said:

IMO, Picasso's work was a joke perpetrated on the art world. They still haven't gotten it, but in the future I believe it will be revealed as a hoax. 😶

I have always thought that Picasso was a bit of a charlatan. I’ve often wondered if his work wasn’t a joke perpetrated on the art world on purpose by him. Of course we can but wonder. Because there’s no way to know.

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1 hour ago, fas42 said:

 

Thanks for pointing to that, George - some very spiffy bodywork done for that chassis,

 

 

 

In the ‘50’s, and well into the ‘70’s, the Italian carozzeria (coach builders) such as PinninFarina, Bertone, Touring, Zagato, Ghia, Vignale (the picture you posted, above, is a Vignale body), etc. made some of the most interesting (not to mention beautiful) car bodies in the world. What happened is that when the world went to unibody construction, there was no longer a chassis that could take custom bodies. This more or less limited the carozzeria’s ability to build custom bodies because they had to fashion a custom unibody structure as well as the custom styling. In the 1960’s, Fiat built the ultra lovely and ultra desirable Fiat Dino Spider (convertible). This car had standard coach work, and a lovely 2.4 liter V6 which was developed from an engine designed by Dino Ferrari, the Old Man’s son who died young of multiple sclerosis. This Fiat, with it’s PinninFarina styling is drop dead gorgeous, as you can see.

 

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1 minute ago, sphinxsix said:

It really is!

 

Sho’ ‘nuff!

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1 hour ago, fas42 said:

 

The 50's and 60's were the good years, in terms of cars being highly individualistic ... as compared to today! 😉

 

I have a personal weakness for an earlier era - so, this Fiat is the one that ticks the boxes for me,

 

Very lovely. Of course, this is the era of the Vittorio Jano Alfa Romeos. Starting with the Zagato bodied 6C1750 Of 1927 and ending with the 8C2900 in 1939.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PS. I took all of these pictures myself. None are from the Internet. I have more than ten-thousand photographs of cars that I’ve taken over the years.