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Best female vocal recording on CD?

i am a sucker for great warm rich smooth female vocalists, especially on tube gear and speakers that image well. but i am almost always faced with a great voice/song but a sonically inferior recording (examples too numerous to list) or a great recording of a mediocre voice.  rickie lee jones (pop pop) comes to mind- fab recording, but come on lets be honest about her voice. however, i will almost always pick great recordings and leave the bad recordings for the car.

 so i am asking for what you use as a reference female vocal recording/track. right now i come back tp bonnie raitt "you cant make me love you" from luck of the draw.  big, warm, strong voice. not a perfect recording. but hmmmm that voice.

my only requirement is it has to be on CD. and we all know of great vinyl that did not translate into great CDs.  so help me out here, what should be my next music purchase 
meiatflask
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
4,908 posts
 

Old favorites of mine are Maryann Price and Naomi Ruth Eisenberg, the two singers of Dan Hicks And His Hot Licks in the 1970’s. They’re great on the studio-recorded Striking It Rich and the recorded-live-at-The Troubadour Where’s The Money? As a bonus, both are unusually good sounding recordings.

And then there are all the Iris Dement albums. I would love them no matter the sound quality, but fortunately they’re pretty good. I used her My Life album as a demo source at CES in the late 90’s.

winoguy17
592 posts
 
Hope Waits.  You're welcome.
tls49's avatar
tls49
1,318 posts
 

Another vote for Holly Cole. Have a few of her albums, favorite is, "Temptation". All tracks are covers of Tom Waits songs.

tubegroover
2,279 posts
 
Beg to differ with you Czarivey, I don't consider Patricia a boring audiophile artist. She has some quite formidable jazz arrangements that put her into the class of unique IMHO. She's pretty good, try her live in France album and enjoy, if this is possible :), I used to feel the same but she has really grown on me the more I listen.
folkfreak's avatar
folkfreak
1,149 posts
 
Some suggestions from the folk genre (as you might expect)
  • Mary Chapin Carpenter -- maybe start with "Between Here and Gone" or "Stones in the Road"
  • Nanci Griffith -- "Other Voices, Other Rooms: her covers CD is a great mix, or try "Flyer" if you want a more pop mastering
  • Sandy Denny -- invest in the "Who Knows Where the Time Goes" 3CD box on Hannibal or the more recent 19CD (!) complete box set
  • Mandy Morton -- we're now getting more obscure, first came to fame with Spriguns but well worth looking for the "Sea of Storms/Valley of Light" combo CD
  • June Tabor -- a classic folk voice -- start with "Airs and Graces" then maybe jump forward to "Against the Streams" (I love "Apples and Potatoes")
  • And finally to bring you bang up to date invest in a copy of "The Elizabethan Session" and get into Bella Hardy and Nancy Kerr in some impeccably well recorded new songs inspired by the Elizabethan age


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