SINGY GIRLS

Hayley Westenra, a young New Zealand soprano, grew up in the new world that Sarah Brightman created for women who would have been destined for the operatic stage in earlier times. When she was six, a visiting music teacher told her parents she was pitch perfect. At age 12, she was busking on the streets of Christchurch with her sister Sophie, and her father invested a good deal of his life's savings in having a professional quality CD of their singing produced. Hayley and Sophie gave away more than a few of the CDs, but it paid off. When she was 13, her father was able to negotiate a recording contract for her, and she became popular in New Zealand, and was also able to pay for singing lessons (really, it's not as though she really needed them). Then she signed with Decca Records, and produced an album which became an international success--Pure. It is the fastest selling classical debut album in UK history, selling almost 20,000 copies in the first week. It also entered the pop charts in the UK at number eight. No less a figure than Enio Moriconi has asserted that Hayley is pitch perfect, and he made an exception to his life long refusal to arrange for singers in order to do an album with her.

Her she sings the Joni Mitchell classic, "Both Sides Now" . . .

Not all great female singers are the operatic type. This country girl from Virginia had a brief career as a a star, and a tragic end.

Firstr voice is beautiful, but I always preferred deeper voices, like Patsys.

Not to sidetrack, but while searching for alto's (which I had always suspected I was) I found this interesting video that tests your range.

Sure enough, I'm an alto.
My tope note was D4, my low F3 (an alto's range is D5 to F3)

Take the test, it's pretty interesting. The chart stars at 1:22

Janelle Monáe moved from her Kansas City home to attend the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, in New York. Her interests took her into the realm of R & B and Soul, and she is a performer, a producer and a brilliant concept artist. Her is her 2010 hit "Tightrope" . . .

And some singers defy categorization, such as this country girl from Texas. You posted this song on another thread, and i've always loved it.

I love Judy Collins. In Farewell to Tarwathie, she employs the sounds of real whales while she sings

Here's another New Zealand soprano, Kiri Te Kanawa, singing a Maori love ballad, written a century ago on the eve of the First World War.

This woman was the darling of the French nation throughout her career, and her singing was about her life, and lives of all women. Piaf is argot, and means "sparrow." La vie en rose could be reasonably translated into English as seeing the world through rose colored glasses. It was her "signature" song.

I gotta go do some other things, but i'll be back.

Here's the ultimate ballad of teen age angst:

From Judy Collins' generation, another great folk singer . . .

I've always loved Annie Haslam.

I like it when the wimmins get involved in more serious music, too . . .

Cool, i don't believe i had ever heard her before.

For the life of me, I have no idea why they didn't take off and become really big. I love Renaissance.

Here's Robyn Adele Anderson with Postmodern Jukebox. She's a lot more recent but the sound is old timey (and it's a rap, to boot).

Continuing the theme of serious female vocalists . . .

I've seen her vids on youtube for some other songs--kewl . . .

Cool . . . that's the kind of voice you like, it take it.