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Post by Ish Kabbible on Aug 28, 2014 10:34:43 GMT -5
The ability to sing can be an artform. Obviously so since millions of people pay money to hear it. My excluding it as being defined as a musician isn't meant to lessen that gift. To call a pure singer a musician is calling someone who records their voice for an audio-book an author
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Aug 28, 2014 10:36:06 GMT -5
The ability to sing can be an artform. Obviously so since millions of people pay money to hear it. My excluding it as being defined as a musician isn't meant to lessen that gift. To call a pure singer a musician is calling someone who records their voice for an audio-book an author Except, of course, that it's not. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 28, 2014 10:43:34 GMT -5
No, of course it's not a zero-sum game. This is purely an intellectual (for lack of a better adjective) exercise. Would you say that Bill Monroe was, in totality, a more impressive musician than Frank Sinatra, considering all the former brought to the table that the latter didn't? As someone who's never played anything but the radio & the stereo, I'm pretty impressed by people who can play an instrument; if they add songwriting & vocals to that, I'm even more impressed. I think part of the problem is that everyone thinks "well singing isn't a talent. I can sing." Maybe. But nobody wants to listen to you. My wife can sing, but it made my children cry. Pretty much anyone can write a song too. And given the quality of 90% of what is on the radio, they can do it as well as all those "real musicians" out there. This honestly smacks of the horrendously sad and elitist "real fan" and "real gamer" phenomenon. Depends on what you like, of course. I'm not the type of guy who'd get off on sitting in some Las Vegas lounge surrounded by lowlifes with money, so Sinatra's entertainer chops would be lost on me. I'd also rather listen to Bill Monroe, & for that matter probably your wife, sing "Blue Moon of Kentucky" than I would Sinatra sing anything in his catalogue. It's just a matter of taste. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Aug 28, 2014 10:55:18 GMT -5
I'll go ahead and add that Sinatra had song-writing credits on the following songs.
I'm A Fool To Want You (with Jack Wolfe and Joel Herron, 1951)
Mistletoe and Holly (with Dok Stanford and Hank Sanicola, 1957)
Mr Success (with Ed Greines and Hank Sanicola, 1958)
Peachtree Street (with Jimmy Saunders and Leni Mason, 1950)*
Sheila (with Chris Hayward and Bob Staver, 1949)
Take My Love (with Jack Wolfe and Joel Herron, 1950, an adaption from a theme from 3rd Symphony by Johannes Brahms)
This Love Of Mine (with Sol Parker and Hank Sanicola, 1941)
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Aug 28, 2014 10:58:37 GMT -5
I'd certainly say he's a more complete musician than Sinatra. He certainly isn't as good of a singer or an entertainer. I think part of the problem is that everyone thinks "well singing isn't a talent. I can sing." Maybe. But nobody wants to listen to you. My wife can sing, but it made my children cry. Pretty much anyone can write a song too. And given the quality of 90% of what is on the radio, they can do it as well as all those "real musicians" out there. This honestly smacks of the horrendously sad and elitist "real fan" and "real gamer" phenomenon. Depends on what you like, of course. I'm not the type of guy who'd get off on sitting in some Las Vegas lounge surrounded by lowlifes with money, so Sinatra's entertainer chops are be lost on me. I'd also rather listen to Bill Monroe, & for that matter probably your wife, sing "Blue Moon of Kentucky" than I would Sinatra sing anything in his catalogue. It's just a matter of taste. I'd love to be able to do both. I've seen a lot of footage of Sinatra, Martin and Davis live and that is a show that I would give damn near anything to be able to see. On the other hand I'd have loved to have seen Monroe...particularly if I could have seen him when the great Jimmy Martin was with the "Bluegrass Boys". |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Aug 28, 2014 10:59:18 GMT -5
Sinatra was my Mom's favorite and growing up I heard her playing his albums. I always dismissed his music as old fashioned as a teen. But as I got older I began to appreciate what he did. Even to the point of buying some of his greatest-hits CDs. There's even times when I could start humming "Fly Me To The Moon" for no reason at all.Frank and Tony Bennett are/were cool. Dino on the other hand, not as much
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Post by Deleted on Aug 28, 2014 11:31:00 GMT -5
I figure I'll have to reach at least 80 to have any interest in that sort of stuff. It would also help if I go deaf, & probably senile as well.
I really don't expect to live that long, though.
(Nothing to do, really, with finding it "old-fashioned," I don't think. I'm perfectly happy to listen to, say, certain old country or folk tracks from before WWII.)
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ironchimp
Full Member
Simian Overlord
Posts: 456 
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Post by ironchimp on Aug 28, 2014 11:33:31 GMT -5
thank me later
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Post by chadwilliam on Aug 28, 2014 13:14:33 GMT -5
Although I don't have a favourite, I'm sure it's by Elvis.
John Lennon said towards the end of his life that there wasn't a single song of his that he wouldn't want to re-record, so unhappy with how his stuff turned out. I can't imagine that anyone would agree, but Roy Orbison did a cover of Help as part of a tribute to Lennon that makes me pause and realise what John meant when he said that the Beatles version was a rush job and he was being pressured to release a slower ballad as a rock n roll number. It's just a snippet, but worth it.
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Post by Prince Hal on Aug 28, 2014 17:23:16 GMT -5
Sounds like Nora Dunn singing with Will Ferrell in that SNL bit they used to do so excruciatingly well. |
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Post by Prince Hal on Aug 28, 2014 17:24:59 GMT -5
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Post by Rob Allen on Aug 28, 2014 17:34:36 GMT -5
When you sing in the shower, you are a musician. You are performing music, that's what musicians do. Some people are good enough to do it professionally. Most musicians don't write their own music. Classical piano and violin virtuosos might never perform anything they've written themselves, but no one doubts that they are musicians.
I enjoy Sinatra, Bennett, Dino, Sammy et al., but my favorite has to be Mel Torme.
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Post by berkley on Aug 28, 2014 21:37:16 GMT -5
Recently came across this slowed down version of Help by the early Deep Purple:
Ever since reading somewhere that one of my favourite early Beatles songs, Please, Please Me, was meant to a be a tribute to/imitation of Roy Orbsion I've always wished that he's recorded a cover of it, and if I make the effort I can almost hear him singing it in my head now.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 28, 2014 23:51:46 GMT -5
Sinatra isn't bad, but James Brown music from the same era is more my speed.
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Post by berkley on Aug 29, 2014 1:12:13 GMT -5
I actually like Dean Martin better than Sinatra, whose style always felt a bit cold to me. Objectively, I can see or rather hear that he's an accomplished performer, but his voice didn't click with me in the immediate way that Martin's did. It took me a while before I learned to appreciate Sinatra's singing, whereas I've been a fan of Martin's since almost I can remember hearing music.
But that might be a result of what they were doing when I was a small kid and first heard them - Sinatra's popular 60s stuff like Strangers in the Night or that duet with Nancy are nice songs but not up there with his best, whereas I think Martin found a new groove in the 60s by veering a little into country music, which his relaxed style turned out to be very well suited to. Not that I would have been aware of any of that at the time, of course, but that's how it looks to me now.
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