Important Singers With Limited Emotional Range

[Satchmo Distel]

Inspired by Mat Pereira's post about Elvis Costello on the archived board

http://archive.onetouchfootball.com/...=000282#000006

Although clearly an important artist, I find it hard to find any empathy or connection in the voice, and this is ultimately due to a lack of either range and/or warmth. Something is being held back, as if to be truly vulnerable (not to fake vulnerability but truly mean it) is too much to ask.

That might also be true of New Wave singers generally, so when you hear something that truly does not hold back or cloak pain in irony, it's a real shock (see Sweet Gene Vincent)

From other eras, I think Dylan, Jagger and Morrissey have that issue, although some of Morrissey's early emotional songs, like Well I Wonder, are more moving than I think Costello could have done with the track.

[G-Man]

I think Costello has some emotional depth when he sings country music.

Dylan's emotions show when he sings invective. The hatred really comes through.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Dylan has that issue on much of his studio work, but is frequently able to transcend his limitations in live performances.

Just Like a Woman, Phoenix 1966. Not up to the Manchester version on Live '66 but still pretty intense.


Probably the most expressively emotional Dylan performance I know of is this one:

Tomorrow is a Long Time, NY Library, 1963 (Unfortunately on YT it's only available behind the credits to The Walking Dead!)

[Satchmo Distel]

Costello did a demo for Dusty Springfield called Just A Memory, where he really does let go, but I think it's telling that he didn't release the recording until 12 years later as a bonus track.

But even then he overwrites the verses, as he does on Human Hands (Imperial Bedroom), which is maybe his nicest love song up to that point.

[Jah Womble]

Ian Curtis strikes me as an obvious choice here.

Elvis Costello, I'd argue less so, since he's always used his voice as a tool, as much as he has to carry melody. He may be more limited than many of his contemporaries, but he has 'enough' of a voice to deliver the gentler message, as he has to carry the sardonic - and most of the shades in between. (Billy Bragg's another, who - by his own admission - doesn't have any great range, but the simple honesty of his delivery seems to work somehow. Whether one considers him 'important' is, of course, a different matter.)

[jameswba]

Further to what Amor de Cosmos says about Dylan, there's a live version of Visions of Johanna, I think from 1976 or so, that's sung with real warmth. And I think Time out of Mind is one album where he even overcomes his studio limitations.