Top female singers of the last 50 years ...

My 1969 BBC ticket for "The Dusty Show"

There is a lively debate going on at the Datalounge.com gossip site, which I have been contributing to, on the Top 5 female singers of the last 50 years, so those established before then (such as Peggy Lee, Ella, Judy, Lena, Sarah, Billie, Doris etc) are excluded ....

Leading the pack, with my assistance, are these ten: 

Barbra (if only for those first early albums in the early '60s showing how different and stunning she was) and then the stage and screen FUNNY GIRL / Aretha (if only for those great Atlantic years) / Joni (that classic sequence of '70s albums) / Dusty Springfield / Annie Lennox (those great Eurythmics tracks and videos, that solo album DIVA which I practically wore out / Whitney / Dionne / Karen Carpenter / Nina Simone / Donna Summer - and I have been trying to big up Joan Armatrading, but the Americans don't seem to know her ...

Honorable mention: Etta James / Janis Joplin / Laura Nyro / Sade / Carole King (if only for TAPESTRY, another album that became part of one's life) / Carly Simon / Petula Clark / Cleo Laine / Nancy Wilson / Shirley Bassey / Diana Ross / Tina Turner / Roberta Flack / Mary J Blige / Tracy Chapman / Amy Winehouse / Janis Ian / Patsy Cline / Bobbie Gentry, and I would have to add: German diva Billie Ray Martin, Regina Belle, and disco gals like Kelis,  Ultra Nate, Adeva, Rosie Gaines, Joyce Sims, Erikah Badu, Angie Stone, Shara Nelson and Janet Jackson (again if only for THE VELVET ROPE, and those terrific remixes, all the way back to "What have you done for me lately").  Some like Janis or Amy Winehouse only lasted a few years, but their legacy is huge. Sade is an interesting case - not much output, an album and tour once every decade, but we still like and play her a lot, and again, what a style icon. I love how she performs PARADISE slinking around the stage in that electrifying tour dvd.

Funny how today's girls like Beyonce, J-Lo, even Madonna are not seen as great singers - despite some great songs and video moments. I personally don't care for Tina Turner, Whitney. Bassey or Diana Ross much myself, but they have to be included in the mix.  There just does not seem to be a comparable list of male singers ... 

Oops, a few more I like and used to play a lot: K D Lang, Linda Ronstadt, Kiri Te Kanawa, Alicia Keys, Gladys Knight ..... and of course recently there was no getting away from Adele or the reclusive Emile Sande (is there any programme she has not been on?) - this could go on and on.

Diva time

I am always pleased to discover a new hip hop diva, and my new favourite is Kelis. OK - Kelis has been around for a decade or so, I liked her "Caught Out There" (the one that goes "I really hate you right now ...") and "Milkshake" was a hit too and Kelis seemed another kooky diva like Macy Gray whom we all went nuts over - but I never really got into Kelis until this week when I saw on MTV a concert of hers from Ibiza, and suddenly I am bananas about Kelis.
This concert brought back all that euphoria about clubbing and having a great time and Kelis is dynamite on stage - like Grace Jones, Adeva, Ultra Nate, Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, Chaka Khan, Rosie Gaines ("Closer Than Close") and all the others I liked like Joyce Sims ("Come Into My Life", "All in All") or Donna Allen ("Joy and Pain") or Alison Limerick ("Where Love Lives"), Eve Gallagher ("Love Come Down"), Ce Ce Peniston ("Finally"), Gwen Guthrie, Jennifer Holiday ("Hard Time for Lovers") or German diva Billie Ray Martin - all those hits like "Running Around Town", "Your Loving Arms" etc., and listening to and watching Sade or Janet Jackson remains a timeless pleasure, particularly Janet's "Velvet Rope" album and her Joni Mitchell tribute "Got till its gone" ....

Sade's rendering of "Paradise" on her concert dvd is something I can watch over and over too, then there is Angie Stone and D'Angelo ... yes, we are in a neo-soul groove ... old soul too of course, having seen Aretha (twice), and Roberta Flack (I still love "Compared to What" and "Trying Times" on her first album "First Take"),  Nancy Wilson and Otis Redding in their 60s prime.  

Alicia Keys is my other current diva of choice, ever since "Falling" and we also like Jody Watley, Shara Nelson (initially with Massive Attack - that great video for "Unfinished Sympathy", left), Angela Bofill ("Too Tough"), Regina Belle, and now Emile Sande is everywhere ...

I now have Kelis's "Greatest Hits" and most recent album "Flesh Tone" to listen to and put on repeat on the iPod! Groovy ... and now there's Aimee Mann to finally discover ...  Then we have all the club anthems by Groove Armada and A Man Called Adam ("Barefoot in the head", "Duende" album, and their groovy collection from Space, Ibiza), I loved their club nights at Heaven; the deep house Global Underground compilations by disk jockeys like Danny Tenaglia ("Music is the answer"), Ibiza anthems ("Brighter Days" by Dajae, "Sun Rising Up" by Deux) and chillout compilations, and more soul sounds with Soul II Soul and Inner City, 

Dusty & Neil Tennant 1988

and getting "Fired Up" with the Miami Murk/Funky Green Dogs - what a night that was, also at Heaven. Clubland in all its diversity - well from 10 years ago anyway ... Heaven nights in the early '80s is a whole other chapter ...  We don't of course like all divas, some (not naming Mariah, Rihanna, Beyonce and others) leave us cold. Dusty Springfield of course was a diva, and then there is Madonna, well her early to mid-period anyway ... pleased now I got to see Dusty taping one of her 1969 BBC specials at the old Golders Green Theatre, I remember she had to re-do the first song so she was stomping around the stage in a bad mood .... thats a diva!. Her Dusty In Memphis album is essential, as well as her collection of A-sides and B-sides, and her work with the Pet Shop Boys, and I also like that Donna Summer-Quincy Jones album with Donna's dynamic version of Billy Strayhorn's "Lush Life", a diva anthem indeed. 

Then there is Debbie Harry of Blondie and of course Eurythmics' Annie Lennox, I practically wore out her first solo album, titled - what else? - "Diva". I have not even mentioned Barbra Streisand ... well I saw her on stage in FUNNY GIRL from the front row, when I was all of 20 in 1966. We liked the early Barbra albums and movies - until her A STAR IS BORN when a diva was suddenly A Star Is Boring. 
The '70s of course was a good time for seeing various divas: Peggy Lee at the Royal Albert Hall in 1971, also Dionne Warwick, Petula Clarke, Cleo Laine several times, Sarah Vaughan, Eartha Kitt, Joan Armatrading and a very bizarre concert by 
Nina Simone. ...whom I always liked, particularly that "Nina At Town Hall" album; Nancy Wilson's live album is enjoyable too, like Nina she also does a killer version of "You Can Have Him" and a hilarious "Ten More Good Years" - as Nina put it: "Give me more and more and then some" ...

Next musical extravaganza: the reissued Fleetwood Mac "Rumours" - the '70s in aspic.

Divas ain't what they used to be ...

An interesting new year afternoon catching up with the 2012 VH1 DIVAS - that annual Diva concert from music channel VH1. This one though leaves one wondering whatever happened to divas. It begins amusingly enough with host Adam Lambert finding his inner diva with help from GLEE's marvellous Nene Leakes. Then there is a mish-mash of dance music tributes by divas who are not well known on this side of the Atlantic, apart from Kelly Rowland and Miley Cyrus. The snippets we see of real diva stars Donna Summer, Whitney Huston, Blondie and Madonna are the best things on offer, apart from Adam in that red get-up.

There is also a pitiful attempt to recreate the best dance track of all time - Deee-Lite's "Groove Is In The Heart" by Natasha Bedingfield and some others, that makes one want to rush and put on the real thing.
Adam though rocked with his versions of David Bowie's "Lets Dance" and bravely took on Madonna's "Ray of Light" in a very odd Kaballah ? style tunic.

Thank goodness I got the dvd of the first Diva concert in 1998 - was it really that long ago ? - headed by Aretha Franklin, Celine Dion, Carole King, Shania Twain, Gloria Estefan and Mariah Carey - now, thats Divas!  Let's play it again ... The divas headed by Aretha singing Carole's "Natural Woman" ...

 I must dig out an old vhs video cassette recording of a 1993 Aretha TV Special: "ARETHA FRANKLIN & FRIENDS: DUETS" where introductions are by Dustin Hoffman and Robert de Niro, and her back-up singers "The Aretha-aires" are only Elton John, Rod Stewart and Aretha's old pal Smokey Robinson. as they belt out the likes of : "Chain of Fools", Elton's "Border Song", "I Never Loved A Man", "Think", "Since You've Been Gone", "Natural Woman", "This Old Heart of Mine", "People Get Ready", Spirit in the Dark" etc. Its almost as good as seeing Aretha at her peak as my pal Stan and I did in 1968 and 1970 both at Hammersmith Odeon, before she stopped flying to Europe. 

 

My Aretha 1968 and 1970 Concert Programmes

We also saw Otis Redding and the Stax Tour there in 1966, just before they took that flight home .... 

Nancy Wilson - Lush Life

Nancy Wilson - that '60s singer on Capital Records - is still going strong. I have just discovered her website. She was (and is) up there with Peggy Lee and Julie London and also made lots of albums and had several hits. I particularly liked "How Glad I Am" back in the mid-60s, and had several of her albums which were an interesting crossover at the time between the jazz and pop worlds, capturing that fabulous honeyed voice with great phrasings, like that terrific version of "Lush Life". Good to see they are still available now on cd, so one can easily stock up.

The first concert I saw here in England was actually by Nancy, back in 1965, when I was 19 - programme cover at left. She was of course terrific though (like seeing Peggy Lee in 1970 at the Albert Hall) the venue was too big - one should really see her in an intimate cabaret club atmosphere. (That concert venue was ideal though for seeing Aretha Franklin there in 1968 and 1970). "The Nancy Wilson Show" from that time captures her act perfectly - and is a terrific live album as good as those other favourites of mine: "Nina Simone At Town Hall", "Marlene Dietrich In London" or "Aretha At The Fillimore"!

Other Nancy favourites of mine include her versions of "On Broadway", "Satin Doll", "You Can Have Him", "Quiet Nights", "Over The Weekend", "West Coast Blues", "Free Again", "10 Good Years" and "Guess Who I Saw Today". She did a great theme tune for that Lana Turner drama LOVE HAS MANY FACES and she appears in the tense Siegel thriller THE KILLERS in 1964. Viva Nancy ....