I find it funny that singers are often overlooked in discussions of music. They are very often after-thoughts, verbal musicians whose contribution is the less than a guitarist or keyboardist. Yet, there is a big difference between Sid Vicious and Frank Sinatra singing "My Way".
What follows are three women singers I like. One is a jazz singer, a second is an under-exploited R&B singer, the third is a woman whose international debut with a rock band preceded a huge reconstruction of an R&B song.
The first time I heard Cassandra Wilson, three names came to mind. She swings like Ella. She has the vocal range and power of Sarah Vaughn. She has the rhythmic and melodic complexity of Thelonius Monk. There are few contemporary jazz vocalists who have managed to not only take in everything, but keep moving forward, but she is the best.
When I call Anita Baker "under exploited", what I mean is that, quite simply, the material she has been given by the awful "Adult Contemporary" industry simply doesn't match up with the potential and real abilities she has shown. Another Sarah Vaughn sound-alike, were she to have the resources that, say, Aretha Franklin had when she signed to Atlantic in the late-1960's, I think she would be huge. Sadly, she has been ghettoized by a music industry that thinks adults like horrid schlock. The best thing one can say is that she manages to take these songs and make the vocal beautiful.
Finally, there is Oleta Adams. I first heard her, as did most of the rest of the world, when she sang a duet with Roland Orzabal on Tears for Fears' "Woman in Chains". I still get chills when I hear her sing. The next time I heard her, she was taking a Brenda Russell song, described by one commentator as "cute" - and should one read the lyrics without thinking of the production, this description is apt - and turning it in to an aching plead by a woman for her man to come back. Maybe I'm a sentimental softy, but I still get tears in my eyes when I hear this song. Having drifted in to the same "AC" orbit as Anita Baker, Oleta continues to record and perform, including a recent Gospel CD.
Should anyone not notice, these women share two traits. First, they are, all three, quite, even stunningly, beautiful. Also, they are all altos. I realized, when putting this together, that with the exception of Billie Holiday, I am not really a fan of sopranos. Nor am I a fan of blues shouters, vibrato-plagued folk-rockers, or in fact most of those women who sing in rock. Guess that's just me.
