What would you call it? I haven’t heard them, but I understand he released some duets with Alison Krauss, who’s anything but a rocker.
Sorry, I didn’t watch it all the way through, I just confirmed it was the correct song. What I saw of it looked tame enough that I didn’t suspect there might be nudity.
I came here to mention Brian Setzer (and his orchestra), but I see I was beaten to it.
C’est la vie.
Nick Lowe
The OP seems to ask specifically for rockers who switched to singing old standards, which from the two examples given (Rod Stewart and Linda Ronstadt) means pre-rock, George Gershwin/Cole Porter/Rodgers & Hammerstein type stuff. Basically, the “Great American Songbook.”
Bryan Ferry’s *As Time Goes By * album is all crooner-era classics.
Sting rocked with the Police. Yes he did.
How about Curtis Stigers?
AOR to Jazz Crooner?
Jimmy Thudpucker started out as a rocker, then transitioned to country music, renaming himself Jimmy Ray Thudpucker in the process. Relatively recently, he again renamed himself, this time as J. Worthington Thudpucker, and released an album of standards.
Gene Simmons has sung lounge music several times on his reality show. He even sang an old song in the wedding episode with Shannon. He’s actually very good at it.
Elton John has also been known to sing a rock song or two.
Elvis idolized Dean Martin, so yeah, definitely a crooner when it comes to ballads and down-tempo material.
I wouldn’t characterize what Robert Plant did post-Zep as “crooning” - Sea of Love is a croonable song, but his version with the Honeydrippers is sung, I dunno, pretty straight-up. He doesn’t dip down into crooning territory, if you follow. Even his stuff with Alison Krauss - it is slow; it is not sung aggressively or rock-stridently, but it isn’t *crooning *to my ear.
Although I haven’t heard a woman’s vocals described this way and am sure it is technically incorrect, I would describe **Karen Carpenter **as a crooner - meaning, you can really hear how she is down in her range and very open and clear at letting the low-end of her voice resonate. When Plant sings a standard like Sea of Love, he backs off the aggression, but doesn’t dip down like Karen Carpenter did. I can hear her voice alongside Bing Crosby’s; I can’t hear Plant’s…
I was making fun of the ridiculous warble that replaced his ridiculous screeching once he lost his range in the mid-'70s.
I think the #1 in this catagory has to be Neil Sedanka and his songBreaking Up is Hard to Do: #1 in 1962 as an upbeat pop song and #1 in 1975 as a ballad,
I don’t think Neil could ever really have been termed a ‘rocker’, though.