Singers whose voices are - not what they used to be...

PhilW1

Philly_Q said:

JMP220478 said:

would be interesting to see how many of those who have maintained their voices have had professional vocal coaching .. 

Tom Jones was mentioned at the top of the thread.  I don't really know very much about him other than, you know, famous singer, professional Welshman, long career, several big hits.... but when he sings on The Voice he is really, really good. 

Of course he was always famous for his voice but his singing style seemed quite mannered and OTT, in a James Brown sort of way.  Now he's a bit more restrained but really in control of his voice.  I've often wondered if he's quietly had some late-career vocal coaching.

Praise and Blame is a great album.

LuttiS

Meatloaf.. saw him live quote a while ago now, by the 4th song his voice had gone. Later on saw him talking on a show about bat out of hell, he quietly sang along to a clip and then smiled and said smugly.. "still got it!" I turned it off at that point.. 

Also Paul Di'Anno - 
Clip for giggles- 


Reality is it's much much worse.. in the clip he is slurring and pretty awful but he still has a little power and is mostly on key ish.. 
Again saw him a little while ago, he can't hold a note and finishes anything even slightly longer that a very short word with hu wuh wuh wuh on the exhale.. 

Blaze Bayley on the other hand has taken care of himself and still sings great..

Grocer_Jack

This Paul Young is not quite as bad as the one at the start of the thread, but has the bonus of a terrible guitar solo too. 

https://youtu.be/gbP5SJLdTOI

The blue PRS seems ‘right’ for this somehow

horse

Jon bon Jovi sounds like he is just talking and holding his nose these days

Whitecat

Jon Anderson still sounds almost exactly like he did back in the day... was pretty astounding to see him a couple years back with Rabin & Wakeman. Rabin sounded great too, for that matter!

Donald Fagen is hit & miss - if you catch him at the beginning of a Steely Dan tour he's pretty impressive. By the end, he sounds tired...

Agree about Bryan Adams. Was super impressed with him...

Tom Johnston from the Doobies still sounds great, hits most of the high notes with no trouble.

Sad that Bobby Kimball has fallen so far, since the rest of Toto sounded great on their last tour... Joseph Williams and Luke were doing what they've always done and it was all really good.

jaymenon

Whitecat said:

Agree about Bryan Adams. Was super impressed with him...

Tom Johnston from the Doobies still sounds great, hits most of the high notes with no trouble.

Sad that Bobby Kimball has fallen so far, since the rest of Toto sounded great on their last tour... Joseph Williams and Luke were doing what they've always done and it was all really good.

Agree - it would appear that Bryan Adams has a naturally high voice, and as the primary songwriter, was able to write his songs in keys that he could sing easily. Interesingly along with Michael Bolton, Steve Perry, Sting and many other rock vocalists with Alto voices these guys do not seem to have a lot of low notes, so while they can sing high, their vocal range (lowest to highest note) isn't that wide. No balls in the bottom end - so to speak

Tommy Johnston - still great to listen to.  Mishcael McDonald on the other hand was always straining to hit those very high notes - and now seems to sing a bit 'late', but hits the notes with obvious difficulty.

Paul Young and Bobby Kimball (above) sound really really terrible...

It's particularly sad for Kimball - David Paich wrote songs in very high keys, and (according to Lukather's book) even in the studio in the 70s amd early 80s , it took multiple takes for Kimball to hit those high notes. Which pretty much guarantees difficulties in a live scenario. Do that for long enough, and you ruin your voice. Though interestingly Kimball seems to have retained his vocal range - but has lost the ability to control and sing in tune. ???

Joseph Williams - okay, sings reasonably in tune, but doesn't have even half the passion and character of KImball's voice at its prime. And also strains to hit the high notes, which are often sung by the backing singers...

jaymenon

Small wonder...

freakboy1610

That clip of Paul Young was horrendous! I guess he's just trying to make a living now but imagine the disappointment if you were a real fan. I was a big fan of Lou Reed when I was younger and he could just about carry it off when I saw him live in 1989 but his voice was completely shot long before he passed. 

guitars4you

Jalapeno said:

Tony Bennett is incredible for someone over 90 !  Shows the benefits of proper technique

agree that every time I've seen TB on any live show over the last 10 years he can still deliver

also agree with various comments on Bryan Adams - Saw him live about 2 years ago and he still delivered as well

guitartango

Grumpyrocker said:

Roger Waters was never a good singer. But he lip syncs live now, the cheating sod. 

I think he admitted this years ago, worth seeing him doing "The Wall"

RobDavies

Joe Elliot is buggered - sounded awful at Download.     Hetfield and Mustaine are both distinctly average these days.... tell you who isn't though... Mr Biff Byford.



https://youtu.be/jcx3OjNMlu4

RobDavies

That bass player in the Bobby Kimbal clip..... a (very good) bass playing friend of mine says he's a genius.  I'm not convinced, unless he's playing it for laughs?

BloodEagle

I would ay both Hetfield and Mustaines vocals have drifted into (well, for probably nearly 30 years now) caricatures of themselves - Mustaine with his stupid growly cat voice and Hetfield with his Yeeeaaaa-yaahhh sort of thing.

Tom Araya was awful for a period (again, problably more than a decade at least), but in the last few years hes really sounded good again. When I saw Slayer last year and again this year he sounded properly amazing.

Axl Rose was hysterically bad when he was doing his one man GnR shows, but seems to have upped his game considerably since the proper reunion started - makes me wonder if him getting hsi vocals together was a condition of Slash etc doing it again.

Cols

Axl Rose always sounded like a strangled cat raking its claws down a blackboard to me.

RandallFlagg

pintspiller said:

I saw The Who in Belfast on the Quadrophenia tour and was somewhat disappointed. But he is so much older these days, so I wasn't really surprised to be honest. He was singing from his chest the way I've noticed Brian Johnson doing, so I assume that's how one can recapture some of the rock'n'roll-ness.

Both Roger & Pete are struggling here:

RobDavies

RandallFlagg said:

pintspiller said:

I saw The Who in Belfast on the Quadrophenia tour and was somewhat disappointed. But he is so much older these days, so I wasn't really surprised to be honest. He was singing from his chest the way I've noticed Brian Johnson doing, so I assume that's how one can recapture some of the rock'n'roll-ness.

Both Roger & Pete are struggling here:

I dunno...I’ve heard much worse and Roger’s not far off eighty years old.  Although I did notice when they did Glastonbury a few years the ‘scream’ during ‘Won’t get fooled again’ was a backing track - even though ol’ Rog still pretended it was him. 

CountryDave

horse said:

Jon bon Jovi sounds like he is just talking and holding his nose these days

Jonny was never the best singer in the band anyway.  Saw them on every tour from the mid 80's until sometime in the early 00's when we came away thinking his voice was shot.  Nothing I've seen since has convinced me it's got any better.  The last thing I saw was the hall of fame induction which was pretty much your description with some added whispering.  Makes you wonder how high the gain is set on his mic channel.

Grumpyrocker

RandallFlagg said:

pintspiller said:

I saw The Who in Belfast on the Quadrophenia tour and was somewhat disappointed. But he is so much older these days, so I wasn't really surprised to be honest. He was singing from his chest the way I've noticed Brian Johnson doing, so I assume that's how one can recapture some of the rock'n'roll-ness.

Both Roger & Pete are struggling here:

Roger sounds like Count Arthur Strong. 

Grumpyrocker

Jesus, had no idea his voice was this shot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhabY4RiIOk

Reverend

Bon Jovi sounds like Marge Simpson