Anyone else partial to female vocalists? (1 Viewer)

[george king]

Keith,
If you like Alison (and I do) check out Martha's Trouble at www.marthastrouble.com
very similar, you should like it, especially Still and Sleeping Dogs

 

[Vickie_M]

Quote:

That's like saying she hasn't grown an inch since she was 17. Never Forever is leaps and bounds more advanced than TKI. You may not consider more mature and complicated songwriting and production "better" but that's a personal matter. I love TKI, and it'll always have a soft spot in my heart because it was the first album I heard, but in no way is it "way better" than anything she's done since. You just don't like anything she's done since as much.

 

[Angelo.M]

Vickie: I hadn't caught back up with this thread. Thanks for your complement about my musical tastes.

I have heard all of the ladies you mentioned with the exception of 2, and none of them, yet, have reached me in the way that the ladies I mentioned have. I like Holly Cole and Norah Jones a lot--we were listening to Norah on WFUV here in NYC two years before she broke nationally--but she's got a long way to go yet. Her album is great, but it bores me compared to her great in-studio performances at WFUV and the live gigs she's done in NY. The best commercially-available thing she's done, IMHO, is her cover of the Dylan/Band gem, "Bessie Smith," on her live DVD. She keeps singing with that kind of soul, and I'll be along for the ride for a long, long time.

By the way, is there anyone more perfect to play the lead in a hypothetical film version of Salman Rushdie's The Ground Beneath Her Feet than Norah Jones? Hmmmmmmm...

 

[Angelo.M]

Michael:

Thanks for mentioning Emmylou Harris. Her Wrecking Ball is the single best album of the 1990's. If I could buy everyone on HTF one album and force them to listen critically, that would be my pick. It is, in a word, sublime.

And, definitely pick up Daniel Lanois new record, Shine. Good stuff.

Going to see Caitlin Cary tonight. Yeah!

 

[Angelo.M]

For fans of Norah Jones, Holly Cole, Patricia Barber, etc.:

Do check out Stacey Kent, Jane Monheit, Jacqui Naylor (recommend Live at the Plush Room), Carla Helmbrecht, Karrin Allyson (recommend In Blue) and, of course, Eva Cassidy (recommend Live at Blues Alley, which is a stunningly simple and lovely recording not to mention a great performance and set of songs).

 

[Eric Peterson]

I definitely listen to a lot of female singers and lately more than ever with the complete lack of interesting music coming from male based bands aside from Mike Patton projects and Tool.

Here's what I've been listening to.

1. Beth Orton

2. Aimee Mann

3. Tori Amos

4. Fiona Apple

5. Beth Gibbons w/ Portishead

6. The Breeders (Kim Deal)

7. P.J. Harvey

8. Natalie Merchant (Preferably w/ 10,000 Maniacs)

9. Bjork

10. The Cardigans

11. Ani DiFranco

12. Lisa Loeb

13. Edie Brickell

14. Sarah Maclachlan

15. Alanis Morrisette

16. Sinead O'Connor

17. P.O.E.

Not to mention all of the great classics (Billie Holiday, The Andrews Sisters, Ella Fitzgerald, etc...)

There is more diversity in the list above then any 17 semi-popular male artists/bands that I could think of.

 

[Angelo.M]

You mean Beth Gibbons of Portishead, right?

 

[Eric Peterson]

Yep! My fingers were moving faster than my brain. I just updated my post.

 

[Karl_Luph]

Eric, thanks for remembering Billie Holiday, The Andrews Sisters,& Ella Fitzgerald. Nobody can deny how great they are and continue to sell recordings for the past 60-70 some years. These gals had real talent and something alot of entertainers today don't have or don't want and that is class.I guess time will tell if Britney,Madonna or Christina A. will still be selling recordings even 40 yrs. from now.

 

[kamyiu]

No, I've been a part of the fan community since 1980, and HoL IS generally considered her best. If not that, then The Dreaming (which is my favorite).

yes! the dreaming is my favorite as well.

 

[Karl_Luph]

I always thought Patsy Cline and Linda Ronstadt could hold their own against most female singers.Does anyone remember K.T. Oslin, a country singer in the early 90's?

 

[John Watson]

Yes, "80's ladies"? My brother and his wife had all her cds.
If I'm not mistaken, no one has mentioned Jennifer Warnes, and her FAMOUS BLUE RAINCOAT album, once almost as popular as TAPESTRY.
I think it's a pity not many of Roseanne Cash's old albums are in print now. :frowning:

 

[Angelo.M]

John: Warnes' Famous Blue Raincoat was long ago labelled as one of the best-engineered recordings available on CD. Even though it's more than a few years old now, the recording still holds its own (actually, it more than holds its own; it sounds better than a lot of the shoddy production on much of pop nowadays). Anyway, I still use it to demo speakers--her voice is just so well-recorded. That and Patricia Barber's Cafe Blue: two of the best recordings of the female voice I've heard.

Funny enough, I'm not particularly crazy about the music on FBR; just not sold on her interpretations, except for "Bird on a Wire." Also, FBR has been out-of-print domestically for a long time but you can still obtain the German import rather easily (Amazon sells it).

 

[Brian Burgoyne]

I just saw Tish Hinijosa at a free outdoor concert as part of Ft. Worth Main Street Festival. She is an Austin based singer/songwriter and sings in both Spanish and English. She has a charming, relaxed, friendly stage presence and a wonderful voice. She has numerous CD's out, mostly on Rounder Records and some on Warner. She even has a children's CD and book that is highly commended by Bilingual Education Professors.

Anybody heard of her?

 

[John Watson]

I didn't know FBR was out of print, I've never owned it except on vinyl. May look up that import edition!

I remember that name - Tish , and think I may have her appearing on some album of Jimmy Dale Gilmore or Nancy Griffith. Or was it a Los Lobos type album from the 80's? I had 2 or 2 other Rounder CDs with female performers about the same time, more on the blues side, I'd probably remember their names if I heard them. And I still have several Sweethearts of the Rodeo disks - a little more on the country side.

On a stretch (since more obscure names are coming up), I bought an album by Olivia Molina when I was in Germany in the early 1970s', which I've since looked for on CD (without luck). It had a great version of La Bamba, but the song I still want to play it for is "Schon ist die Welt". I believe she was of South American origin, but had a European career.

 

[Angelo.M]

John: it's been OOP for a long time. The import edition is on BMG International. Amazon carries it, but I had an indie record shop order it for me. They had no problems doing so.

 

[Brian Burgoyne]

John W.--you are correct. Tish has sung with both Jimmy and Nancy.

 

[Karl_Luph]

Another gal to check out is Mandy Barnett. Whatever happened to Suzy Bogguss?

 

[John Watson]

PS Pulled out some older cds for a listen, of TIMI YURO, and remembered this thread.

She was an early 1960's star, with half a dozen hits (Hurt was the giant), but she had a deep powerful voice, with a nasal tone similar to another much more popular singer of the day, ie, BRENDA LEE. Her second album was titled SOUL, before the word became over used as a mid-sixties music fad. Timi's life story could be TV movie, with the tragedy one feels when a great singer develops throat cancer.

Thanks to a British reissue label, a good selection of Timi Yuro's music is available on CD. As the liner notes of one of the disks say, it's a shame that Motown was called soul music, when Timi Yuro had far better claim to the adjective. She did mostly ballads, including a number of country songs, and apparently duetted with Willie Nelson later in her career. Elvis revived "Hurt" late in his career.

I always had a thing for voices like Timi's. Both she and Brenda Lee might be vocal descendants of Edith Piaf (tho without the heroin)

A few more : a British singer named Helen Shapiro had the same vocal quality, tho her music was a bit more on the poppy side, and Sue Thompson did the same thing from Nashville. A Canadian girl named Pat Hervey had a big hit in 1962 with a song called "Mr Heartache", and I remember my excitement at finally getting a 45 rpm copy of that song in the mid 1980s.

I sure wish more of the music of Timi Yuro and Brenda Lee would come to compact disk.

 

[TomCW]

Glad this thread got revived, it's a good one!

To my knowledge, no one has mentioned:

Frazey Ford/Sam Parton/Trish Kline AKA The Be Good Tanyas, or Sally Ellyson from HEM.

Tom