How great singers' voices have or have not held up over time

[Mills Dude]

Touching on what Steve Nathan said, a good singer is doing way more than just hitting notes. They are communicating the mood and emotion of the music with the most expressive of instruments.  Sinatra wasn't the king daddy of crooners so much about his vocal gymnastics, it was the way he could capture and evoke the heart of the song. For me, original key has never been a perquisite for that.

 

I love the high voice guys of the 70s and 80s as much as anybody - Steve Walsh, Steve Perry, Lou Gramm, etc.  But dude they're all in and around 70+ years of age. Sure I love to dabble in the 'look what happened to ...' as much as the next guy but Father Time is a cruel beast and none of us can escape it. I can't expect someone 50 or 60+ to have all the same ability they had in their 20s, its just not realistic.

 

Elton John started losing his vocal range in the 1980s but he's had an extremely fruitful career since then.  I saw him about 10 years back and "Someone Saved My Life" was like a 4th down and sounded great.

 

Is it painful to hear someone straining to hit notes they used to effortlessly hit? Sure it is, but maybe there's too much emphasis on turning these people into a jukebox to relive our nostalgia. There's so much emphasis on "It needs to sound like the original recording made 40-50 years ago". One of the reasons I choose not to gig in bar bands anymore. I can get my nostalgia fix by cranking up tunes in the car and its way cheaper.

 

Of course there's some that haven't seemed to have lost a step in the range department.  This just popped up on my youtube feed - Jon Anderson with the Band Geek guys in LI. Jon is 78 and sounds wonderful, good for him.

 

[o0Ampy0o]

6 hours ago, Steve Nathan said:

Odd to me that so many equate highest note capability with greatest.  I don't know that Tony Bennet can hit the same top notes today as he could in his 20s, but that imho has zero to do with what makes a great singer.  Maybe Tom Jones can still hit the same note, but I couldn't care less.  He's as good a singer today as he was 40 years ago.  I look at taste, pitch, style, control, nuance, feel, emotion, etc.  Singing, like playing is not an athletic competition, it's art. All that matters to me is does it move me emotionally. Period!

That would depend on the voice and range covering their prime period tunes. Elton John could not touch his prime range regardless of him saying it was his manager's ir whoever idea to lower the key. It is more than hitting the note. It is singing it the way you originally sang it. In his case sort of full voiced falsetto. 

[Mark Zeger]

Many great voices heard in the Joni Mitchell Gershwin Prize presentation on PBS

 

 

Yes, this is not peak Joni but deeply affecting considering her health battles. I could listen all day, every day.

 

[sam6599643]

Angela Winbush: still in shockingly good voice for someone whose biggest hit was back in 1987 or something like that. In fact she’s probably never really had the hits she deserves. 

[Polkahero]

Glenn Hughes at age 71 hasn't lost much.

[KuruPrionz]

9 hours ago, TommyRude said:

Disagree with the folks saying Mick Jagger is not a good singer???   I think he's a great singer.  With his voice chops, emotion & rhythm he continues to connect with countless millions across the planet.  If that's not a measure of a great singer, I don't know what is.

I agree to disagree as well. The Stones have had a LONG run and Mick has been there the entire time. 

[K K]

 

[Steve Nathan]

And there's this

 

[D. Gauss]

Aretha sang at my daughter's graduation. She was fine.

[Stefan011]

Prince took a good care of his voice and even after thirty something years in bussiness he sounded angelic:

 

 

[RABid]

Wow. Three pages and no one mentions Gladys Knight? Her voice has definitely held up. Bonus points to her for spending so much of her time visiting hospitals and cancer centers to do mini concerts for the patients. 

 

I also think Elton John has transitioned well. He does not have the same range, but his voice still sounds good and he has impeccable timing and control of his new range.

 

On the "why are they still singing in public" list, Debra Harry. Saw her on a Diva's show years ago and was shocked, no only by how bad she sounded, but also that she did not seem to notice.

[Montunoman 2]

Maybe this is a bit off topic, but I think it’s odd when a band( mostly rock, pop)  will not play a song because it’s out of the singers range. Why not just transpose? Jazz/ standard vocalists do all the time, why can’t rock bands do it too? 

[KuruPrionz]

1 hour ago, Montunoman 2 said:

Maybe this is a bit off topic, but I think it’s odd when a band( mostly rock, pop)  will not play a song because it’s out of the singers range. Why not just transpose? Jazz/ standard vocalists do all the time, why can’t rock bands do it too? 

A simple lack of edumuhcation? Many colleges extend their classical music programs to include jazz. Not very many of them include rock.

Fretted string instruments are absurdly easy to transpose on, just move the whole she-bang up or down the neck. Bass is even easier than guitar since it uses consistent intervals to tune the strings. 

[Stokely]

As an aside, I'll never get why some people--talking mostly small-time cover performers--get so "high horse" about keeping songs in the original key.  Sure, you sing something a half-octave up or down, it *might* sound weird--or really good, try it.  That's an extreme in any case.  As a baritone I do a fine job according to all singing "Some Kind of Wonderful" in B (C, tuned down a half step).  I can't sing that high screamy stuff so I do a different version and everyone loves it. 

Our guitarist does solo and duo gigs all week long along with band gigs, that's 2-4 hours a night and sometimes he has two on one day, with maybe a day off each week.  Tuning down a half step adds up in vocal savings, and other than some pitch perfect weirdo exclaiming "a ha!!!" out in the audience, nobody cares a whit.  Heck half the bands around here run tracks for half or most instruments, nobody cares a whit, they sure don't give a crap if you aren't doing it "like the album".

There are reasons you might not change keys, namely if the stringed instruments need open strings to play a riff but even those cases can often be worked around.

[TommyRude]

14 minutes ago, Stokely said:

As an aside, I'll never get why some people--talking mostly small-time cover performers--get so "high horse" about keeping songs in the original key.

Here are some examples of going in the other direction:

1. I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor was originally written in F minor but was later raised to A-flat minor.
2. You Raise Me Up by Josh Groban was originally written in the key of Eb major but was later raised to F major.
3. Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) by Eurythmics was originally written in C minor but was later raised to E-flat minor.
4. Everlong by Foo Fighters was originally written in B major but was later raised to C major.

[Stokely]

Sure, our band does this for Superstition, sort of...we play in E which ends up "being" E flat since we tune down.  We have a female singer who prefers the original key.

I was singing Everlong for a while and when tuning down it's really too low in the verses...not that I can't hit those notes in a vacuum but in a band setting it's easier to sing if it was up a bit even for me as a baritone  

[MathOfInsects]

We "hear" songs either at the correct original pitch or within about a half step, which may be a result of people not naturally having relative pitch. It's a sort of dormant form of perfect pitch that we all carry. So moving songs too far away from the pitch of the most widely known version can sound "wrong" to people...at first. But we (listeners) get over it pretty quick.

The only other "pitch" issue can be if, for example, a piano player wrote a song in what is obviously a "piano" key--some riff or something that is clearly a result of how notes fit under the fingers.

Again, we (players) get over that pretty quick. It's more fun to have the "challenge" sometimes anyway. 

[Outkaster]

Gladys Knight and Ronald Isley.

[CowboyNQ]

14 hours ago, Stokely said:

As an aside, I'll never get why some people--talking mostly small-time cover performers--get so "high horse" about keeping songs in the original key.  Sure, you sing something a half-octave up or down, it *might* sound weird--or really good, try it.  That's an extreme in any case.  As a baritone I do a fine job according to all singing "Some Kind of Wonderful" in B (C, tuned down a half step).  I can't sing that high screamy stuff so I do a different version and everyone loves it. 

Our guitarist does solo and duo gigs all week long along with band gigs, that's 2-4 hours a night and sometimes he has two on one day, with maybe a day off each week.  Tuning down a half step adds up in vocal savings, and other than some pitch perfect weirdo exclaiming "a ha!!!" out in the audience, nobody cares a whit.  Heck half the bands around here run tracks for half or most instruments, nobody cares a whit, they sure don't give a crap if you aren't doing it "like the album".

There are reasons you might not change keys, namely if the stringed instruments need open strings to play a riff but even those cases can often be worked around.

I agree.  In the party band I’m in I’d estimate a good 30% of our repertoire is played in a different key to the original to accommodate our vocalists.

 

I’m confident the vast majority of our audience doesn’t know or care.  In fact - if this makes it easier for them to sound awesome to themselves when they sing along - so much the better.

 

 

[analogholic]

On 4/17/2023 at 4:45 PM, TommyRude said:

Cosign on Paul Rodgers.  He's around 60 yrs for this concert, his voice is incredible and just gets better and better.  I'm assuming it's still great today.

 

Saw him around 2014 at Sweden Rock Festival and he sounded incredible....was a bit embarrasing that I didn´t even know who he was...

[analogholic]

On 4/17/2023 at 6:12 PM, Cliffk said:

You mean the one from Earth, Wind and Fire, who died?

Yes...maestro Maurice White died in 2016 and he unfortunately lost that powerful voice a long time before that due to Parkinsons..😥

[Bobbo Fett]

On 4/17/2023 at 7:36 PM, KuruPrionz said:

I agree to disagree as well. The Stones have had a LONG run and Mick has been there the entire time. 

Mick is a great ENTERTAINER, one of the best EVER, no question about that. My point is, as far as possessing great talent as a VOCALIST, in his case I just don't hear it, and since he's NEVER been that, I guess he strictly fits the parameters put forth in this topic (not like he's lost it over the years).....

[AnotherScott]

On 4/17/2023 at 10:45 AM, D. Gauss said:

McCartney is fairly shot but he had a damn good run.

 

I would be thrilled to have ever been able to sing half as well as McCartney sings today. I think we're just comparing him to the impossibly high standard of "younger Paul McCartney."

 

On 4/17/2023 at 12:48 PM, Steve Nathan said:

Maybe Tom Jones can still hit the same note, but I couldn't care less.  

 

Have you ever seen this video? Maybe not the style you most associate with him.

 

 

Related... Young is an example of someone who (I think) sounds the same today, but was never all that great to begin with, and Stills is, well, the opposite. (And a little more on-topic for the forum in general, Stills did a lot of nice keyboard work, too.)

 

 

On 4/17/2023 at 2:11 PM, Mills Dude said:

Of course there's some that haven't seemed to have lost a step in the range department.  This just popped up on my youtube feed - Jon Anderson with the Band Geek guys in LI. Jon is 78 and sounds wonderful, good for him.

 

 

Yup. Also nice to hear Yes songs done at something close to 1970s tempo, unlike the lethargic pace at which Yes plays them these days (at least last I saw).

 

On 4/18/2023 at 12:54 PM, MathOfInsects said:

We "hear" songs either at the correct original pitch or within about a half step, which may be a result of people not naturally having relative pitch. It's a sort of dormant form of perfect pitch that we all carry. So moving songs too far away from the pitch of the most widely known version can sound "wrong" to people...at first. But we (listeners) get over it pretty quick.

 

Like most musical things, I'm sure there's a lot of variation in how much a distant keys bugs someone, even at first. But related to that, and having relative pitch, I don't have perfect pitch, but I can sometimes fake it. There are some songs that are so ingrained in my head, that if I think of them, I'm almost certainly hearing them in the right key in my mind, and I know what key that is, so using that as a reference, I can often know what other notes are. In theory, this lets me "sing a C note" on demand (e.g. by thinking of the opening note of Hey Jude), or any other note (i.e. by using that C as a reference). I'm not totally perfect in practice, because even though I hear a song in my head and know what note I need to sing, I'm weak at instantly vocalizing it. I'll try to sing the note, and because I"m not much of a singer, some other note may come out, and once I hear the note I sang, I lose the reference! I've thought about practicing this to see if I could get better at it, but in the end, it's kind of just a parlour trick anyway.

 

Back to moving too far from a key... If I use the transpose button on a keyboard, I'm okay with half-step and whole-step transpositions, but more than that, things start to get wonky, as my brain is telling me I'm not hearing the notes I'm hitting, and sometimes I'll want to go to a chord that is the wrong chord for the song, but is the right chord based on what I'm hearing.

[harmonizer]

On 4/17/2023 at 10:48 AM, TommyRude said:

Disagree with the folks saying Mick Jagger is not a good singer???   I think he's a great singer.  With his voice chops, emotion & rhythm he continues to connect with countless millions across the planet.  If that's not a measure of a great singer, I don't know what is.

 

Are you evaluating Mick Jagger's voice by what you hear on studio albums or what you have heard from his live performances? I definitely agree that he has been an EFFECTIVE lead singer, with phrasing that really works well on tons of studio recordings. But I still carry a negative bias about his singing because of a performance I heard on Saturday Night Live in the late 1970s, where his singing sounded terrible. Maybe it's unfair for me to carry that bias based on one performance, but that's where I am.

[harmonizer]

I'll share my amazement at how strong McCartney was as a singer even into his 70s, and how much range he retained. He is now 80, and I have not heard any of his singing from the last 5 years, but just based on what I heard 5-10 years ago I have to give him a huge thumbs up.

[AnotherScott]

3 minutes ago, harmonizer said:

I'll share my amazement at how strong McCartney was as a singer even into his 70s, and how much range he retained. He is now 80, and I have not heard any of his singing from the last 5 years, but just based on what I heard 5-10 years ago I have to give him a huge thumbs up.

Here's a recent live video...

 

 

And speaking of Sting... I think Lady Gaga does this song better than he does. And I think he might agree. 😉 

 

 

[harmonizer]

On 4/18/2023 at 10:23 AM, KuruPrionz said:

A simple lack of edumuhcation? Many colleges extend their classical music programs to include jazz. Not very many of them include rock.

Fretted string instruments are absurdly easy to transpose on, just move the whole she-bang up or down the neck. Bass is even easier than guitar since it uses consistent intervals to tune the strings. 

 

Particularly if there are vocal harmonies, the sounds starts to sound like crap if it gets moved down in pitch more than a little. And sometimes the "zip" can disappear from certain rhythm guitar chords - consider what that opening rhythm guitar riff sounds like for "Long Train Running".

[harmonizer]

Just watched the Lady Gaga video. If I ever post a video on our band's channel where I am singing the lead vocal, I would hope there is no performance of Lady Gaga singing that same song that others could compare it to.

[stillearning]

I have not listened to any of Peter Gabriel’s most recent performances, but I think his voice just got better and better over time, at least for the 40 year time period from about 1970 to 2010.

[kaptainkeys]

Surprised no one has mentioned Joseph Williams of Toto.  Just in the last 13 years since he rejoined the band his voice has become much stronger (although they have started doing some more songs a half step down) due to working with an operatic vocal coach to prevent against losing his voice like he did back in the 80s.