Following up on the Quincy Jones article in Vulture, what song or songs hit both your left and right brain with the force of a sledgehammer?
I nominate So You Say by Manhatten Transfer. Cheryl Bentyne has such a powerful emotive voice. The reason I chose this song is a female friend at work wanted to see a pic of my ex wife. Its been a while since I have thought of her and the pain of our divorce has faded. This song came on shuffle on my ride home. Even though the song is sung from a female perspective it hit me like a ton of bricks.
Anyone else have these sorts of songs in their consciousness?
Ian Gillan blowing the needle off the record on Gethsemane {I Only Want To Say} from Jesus Christ Superstar. I’m not religious, but his singing still gives me shivers. And he turned up at the studio and knocked it off in a couple of hours off from his day job with Deep Purple.
Gillan in his prime was astoundingly good. Here he is in 1972, live on Strange Kind of Woman, matching Ritchie Blackmore’s guitar licks vocally, and he blends so perfectly you can’t tell which is guitar and which is his voice. Just an uncanny display of technique.
I wanted to answer this and show some love to my favorite singers…but after running through the list, they’re all pleasing ( too me) but I can’t make much of a case for technically excellent.
I guess I’m more for emotion than technicality.
Here’s a few, if you can call any of these guy technical lemme know:cool:
Gregg Allman
Warren Haynes
Johnny Solinger
Sebastian Bach
Van Morrison
How about Rufus Wainwright’s The Art Teacher
Or George Michael’s Waiting For That Day
It may be obvious but Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On
All masterful performances.
Joni Mitchell’s Blue is a …mistressful performance
Don McLean’s American Pie. Not only do I think that song is outside pf a sole person’s ability to write it, his rendition of it, both on the record and live in concert, is unbelievable.
Ain’t No Way, by Aretha Franklin (written by her sister) is one of those perfect songs that comes along; it features amazing lead vocals by Aretha, even more astounding vocal backup by Cissy Houston, and some terrific instrumental arrangement. When Cissy hits it at about 1:05, it still gives me chills.
It would have to be the performance that turned me on to Nightwish. I had watched a few videos from this band previously, and while I liked them I didn’t see anything really special enough to turn me into a “fan”. The trained operatic soprano vocals on top of melodic heavy metal were unique (to me, at the time), but again, not enough to really “grab” me.
Then I was referred to this 2012 performance in Buenos Aires, featuring Floor Jansen, the band’s third lead singer, a mere two months or so after joining the band in the middle of a tour after the departure of the previous singer.
Holy crap, I have never, before or since, been so completely blown away:
