Best Female Vocalists Ballads

Katherine Jenkins from the UK. Fantastic.

I really have to take my hat off to you guys. The variation in tastes here is mind boggling. I'll add my recent favorites knowing that they don't overlap at all with most of these: Erykah Badu, Melody Gardot, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Nina Simone, Shirley Horn for a real classic, Regina Specktor and my favorite of Ricky Lee Jones.

If I may correct your last one, that's Rickie Lee Jones.

I would add Karrin Allyson to the list.

I wasn't going to mention my favorite "new" artist of the past few decades. The last time I recommended her, to the wife of a friend who was looking for a new female artist to like, the feedback I got was that the wife found Iris Dement "so melancholy". Well, so are Bach's Cello Concertos, right? I realized the woman was looking for superficial entertainment, not High Art.
Merle Haggard started telling people about Iris Dement in the mid-90's, so I got her "My Life" album. Holy f#@king sh*t! Her song "No Time To Cry" (which Merle himself recorded, the highest compliment one songwriter can pay another) is the most devastating song I have ever heard in all my 65 years. And it is a ballad, of sorts. She is very well recorded, her Singer-Songwriter/Acoustic/Bluegrass/Traditional Country sound really well captured. She has the best musicians in the world on her records, guys like Jerry Douglas (Alison Krauss) on Dobro and Stuart Duncan on Guitar. I took that album to CES in the late 90's, and as I was listening to NTTC on the Crosby modified Quad 63's, I felt the tears welling up in my eyes, until I could no longer hold them back. Made a fool of myself at CES!