Babs Gonzales was a master of talk singing.
Ted “Lurch” Cassidy
Near the end of After Hours, cray lady puts buddy in a full body plaster cast, and just prior to that they dance to Peggy Lee’s Is That All There Is?, which is quite talky.
*Sprechstimme *is a weird effect used by Arnold Schönberg in avant-garde works like Pierrot Lunaire. The vocal score notates a definite pitch at the beginning of a syllable—from which it then swerves away to a random higher or lower pitch. The term *Sprechstimme *is literally coined from the words for ‘speech’ and ‘singing’—but, paradoxically, it sounds nothing at all like either.
The limited stylings of Rex Harrison et. al in the OP are not this.
I had a friend who referred to Iggy Pop’s vocal art as “non-singing.” He’d say, “Iggy is the greatest non-singer ever.”
Meaning that, again, Iggy’s phrasing is that of singing not speaking, even though he’s often pitch-challenged.
What about William Shatner’s “Covers” of “Rocket Man” and “Bohemian Rhapsody”
Or William Shatner with Henry Rollins - I Can’t Get Behind That. “I can’t get behind so-called singers, that can’t carry a tune, get paid for talking, how easy is that?”
The Sweet Transvestite Song?
Velvet Underground drummer Mo Tucker’s solo stuff.
Warning: this is, like, really hot.
Yes - it’s Hite Report Disco, cued to where Mr. Murray does his thing.
Get down.
Zappa, Moving to Montana.
(Darn double posts.)
NSFW (and this is the clean version):
While Harry Vanda and George Young were founding members of the Easybeats and were superb songwriters, they weren’t known as vocalists. Harry Vanda was the Easybeats’ lead guitarist, and George Young was their rhythm guitarist - Stevie Wright was the Easybeats’ vocalist. So may well be a vocal limitation.
nm