I’d say Roy Orbision just had a naturally high voice, at least from the songs he performed that I can re-collect anyway.
Parts of “Under the Boardwalk” by the Drifters are very high.
:smack::smack:
See that’s what happens when you do more than one thing after a certain age.
:smack::smak:
And another one for Jenny and the whimp :smack::smack:
You know, crow tastes something like chicken.
:smack: <–just for good measure.
No one has mentioned Elton John – who had an incredible Falsetto.
Interesting. It’s never even crossed my mind to think the primary vocal was trying to impersonate a woman. To me, it sounds simply like a male voice singing in a high (and “false”) register. Never thought that The Four Seasons or The Beach Boys were trying to be effiminate in their music (quite the opposite, really.)
Also, I kinda grew up on WJJD-AM in Chicago, which often had old time recordings of barbershop quartets that regularly featured falsetto parts. I just think that, given pop music up to the 60s, a falsetto would not have been automatically thought of as some sort of countercultural upending of gender roles in music.
A very high tenor is hard to sing “in voice” unless you’ve been born with that voice (or practice singing under a LOT of stress that might ruin your pipes). But high tenors (especially “Irish tenors” like John McCormack) used to be THE male solo voice in popular music, because they could be heard easily in the days before microphones.
Once mics came in, pop tastes took some time to change. In the meantime, “radio tenors” enjoyed a vogue. They were mostly band sidemen singing partly or entirely falsetto, which could be amplified or broadcast and still be heard well. But they did lack a certain traditional masculinity (which was not necessarily needed to appeal to female listeners in those days).
The rise of “crooners” – intimate baritone voices like Rudy Vallée or Bing Crosby –put the radio tenor out of style. None became stars.
Lou Christie had an impossibly high falsetto. “Two Faces Have I” was a notable shrieker, as was “Rhapsody In The Rain”.
Benny! Benny! Benny and je-ets…
the
^
||
Ah, there it is.
What I’ve always found interesting is that he doesn’t actually use falsetto THAT often, but his voice has a quality to it that makes even his low notes sound high-pitched (and I don’t think it’s because his range is particularly high for a tenor- check out “No Surprises” and “A Wolf at the Door”).
Weezer popularized the use of a falsetto backing vocal singing the same melody as the lead (except one octave up) in rock music with their first two albums.
I see what you mean. His voice has a kind of a quiveryness to it that makes it hard for me to tell, so maybe I’ve been overestimating. Any songs where you think he does use it a lot? “Black Star” came to mind for me, and that wordless section of “I Might Be Wrong.”