I’ve a bit of a bass-oriented voice, and have always liked bass singers in general. Its really no longer in fashion I suppose in terms of the popular music of today, but much like the falsetto of Justin Hawkins with The Darkness, I’d like to see a resurgence of the opposite side of this vocal style.
Richard Sterban of the Oak Ridge Boys has a great voice and the song “Elvira” reintroduced pop music to the bass voice (as did Bowser from Sha-Na-Na back in those days) with his ultra-low “Ooompa-pa-mile-mile” (or whatever the lyric was) back in the early 1980’s…but is this now dead aside from gospel music?
I did some searching and I found a pretty amazing video from a guy named JD Sumner who had an amazing bass voice. Apparently he and his vocal group were hired on as Elvis’ backup singers from around 1971 until the King died.
Can anyone top this performance of bass vocals?
And who are your favorite bass vocal performers? Examples please.
I was hoping you’d chime in, being a professional vocalist and all. That Johnny Hartman rendition slays (its the song from Spiderman! Eeek!) and shows that a true bass vocalist doesn’t have to dip down into the lowest possible register to impress or showcase talent, although I suppose my OP was asking for exactly that.
Thanks for the Crash Test Dummies link…I only knew their “Mmmmm…mmmm” song. I like how that song is a lament.
As for the last…did you just pull Showboat rank? Christ!
There’s also the “Oh Brother…Hush” gospel song from all things, a Ralph Macchio movie about the blues…52 seconds in…of course there’s Steve Vai too…so…well, I don’t know what that means, if anything!
I saw this thread and immediately thought of JD Sumner, but I see that several others have already been there. He was truely one of the greats. He originally sang with a gospel group called the Blackwood Brothers (surprisingly still around, though of course not with any of the original singers.) My parents were great fans of the Blackwoods and I heard them in concert several times as a young lad. As I recall, Sumner also had a very humorous and personable stage presense. The Blackwoods BTW also had one of the best piano players - a guy named Wally Barner.
Neat! I too, think JD is awesome, even though I just heard him for the first time yesterday (well…I probably heard him before on an Elvis song, but not in the context of a headliner).
I’m pretty sure that’s Isaac Freeman singing there, who I highly recommend. I bought his album ‘Beautiful Stars,’ which he released shortly after O Brother Where Art Thou brought him into the public eye. It’s gospel, so it might not be everybody’s cup of tea, but he’s a great vocalist no doubt.
Yep, excellent album. “You Must Come In At The Bottom” is his joking self-reference to going from “the highest voice around” as a boy to one of the deepest bass voices in the business. Snippet here.
And of course one must mention Thurl Ravenscroft. Don’t know Thurl? Ohyesyoudo.
ETA: Bah - missed the Ravenscroft reference already mentioned.
