sepheritoh wrote
Maybe a more "who I like the most" than a bestest list.
Ladies - what I want in a ladies voice is, it must be sexy (but I hate too husky as it sounds pretentious)
I wish I could pin down what "sexiness" is when it comes down to singing. I think it's one of those intangible things that make music the amazing thing that it is. I don't find specific tones or techniques to be sexy. In fact I don't really want to hear "sexy" vocals, but I do enjoy performances that can reveal emotion in the music.
For me the top two ladies, in fact the top two singers full stop, in those terms (and this may be very much in the ear of the beholder) are/were Sandy Denny and Linda Thompson. Contemporaries, great friends and, I think, significantly different singers. Denny was more flamboyant, but not in an OTT Barbera Streisand or Celine Dion way. Massive power, when she wanted to use it, impeccable control, great timing, very clear diction and what one might call a "pure" voice. Linda Thompson was (is, when she sings, which isn't much these days) a little deeper, a little huskier, less extrovert. But both of them could deliver performances with a great emotional punch.
It helps to pick the right material of course. Both of them might have been more famous or made more money if they'd done more commercial things (literally in the case of Linda Thompson who was making a good living out of breakfast cereal jingles at one time), but they both went a little deeper, a little more off of the beaten track. Linda's marrying Richard Thompson determined most of her professional career and almost guaranteed that she was going to garner considerable critical acclaim but not very many gold discs.
Your comments about Dylan... I find vocals to be the hardest thing to quantify in popular music, and perhaps the hardest thing when it comes to crossing musical boundaries. Most western popular music relies on vocal styles that, to a greater or lesser degree, derive from American negro styles. Dylan went a long way to breaking that mould, but got away with it because he was Dylan and "the voice of a generation" blah blah. Certainly he made it easier for us to accept Donald Fagen and Mark Knopfler.
Sandy Denny's roots were in British traditional music, and her vocal style relied a lot less on what was coming across the Atlantic and might have rendered her less accessible to some ears. Generally I find singers who come out of the Celtic/English traditional background to be harder to tune into (which is more about me than them) - and especially the male singers. Martin Carthy, who is actually a very strong, very accurate singer, is an example of that (again, for me, not necessarily anybody else). There's a mental jump that I had to take. Nick Drake was easier for me - but he's still nothing that anybody would call rock 'n roll.
