What Makes a Vocalist Great?

So many things determine if we perceive a singer as great. However, you’ll notice a lot of things the vocalist below have in common like: presence, phrasing, dynamics, confidence, originality, vocal control, vocal flexibility and of course the ability to have freedom with their instrument. But the other factor is these singers know the history of their genre’s! We should know our vocal history! It’s important to have a musical understanding of what you're singing now. You should know why you are singing the way you are and if you have some historical insight, you’ll have confidence in your choices, more choices overall and an informed approach to original expression, improvisation and interpretation. I’ve put together a list of singers and songwriters below that covers a wide variety of genres and vocal styles. As developing artists we want to understand and know the history of the vocal stylings for the genres that we are performing or that you are interested in exploring. We don’t need to become experts to explore these genres, but we should have a basic understanding. If a particular style becomes your “main genre”, then yes, you’ll want to go deep into exploring a complete listing of both modern and historical vocal references. I’ve broken out the listing’s below according to some basic “classic” genre categories. These are not all encompassing, however, it will give you a solid idea of what types of vocal sounds, riffing, phrasing, tones etc, fit where in a historical sense. This is by no means the only singers I recommend you listen to, but it should get you off to a good start. If you’re interested in a particular genre, I’m happy to give you deeper listening suggestions. Now go and listen!