THE UNASSAILABLE VOCALISTS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: TEN WOMEN AND TEN MEN WHOSE VOICES INHABITED THE ESSENTIAL QUALITIES OF THE HUMAN CONDITION—DESPAIR AND JOY AND THE IMPULSE TO SING—LIKE NO OTHER MUSICIANS OF THEIR ERA.

Barbara Dane

When a friend restated the simple question—“Who is the best singer?”—that her mother had recently posed, I chuckled at the burden of having to develop a response. Far too many locales, styles, eras, people, and tunes jumbled themselves. The friend, a formidable singer herself, had replied “Freddie Mercury” to her mother, perhaps owing to a Queen song she’d just overheard. In fairness, I love a question both fundamental and fundamentally unanswerable, as this one. Quite a few people can sing, by the way. So, to repurpose a phrase, I pressed my ear to many hundreds of exemplary numbers.  

Too, I required a framework. I chose the twentieth century since it has concluded for the most part. (I leave the twenty-first century to its inhabitant critics.) It felt inequitable to compare men and women together, thus I opted to develop a separate list for each. “Critical acclaim” would be necessary for inclusion but not “star status.” I rejected singers whose catalogues presented “same-y” or saccharine. Character, roughened voice, pioneering sound, and jarring delivery all appealed to me. I hardly resisted a song that “ripped my heart out” (to borrow another phrase.)

If I studied a variety of styles, including jazz, rock, folk, country, blues, soul, and R&B, I left opera, easy listening, and other niches to inhabitant critics. Rather than be “an island” I allowed the counsel of others to penetrate the cold, unforgiving veneer of my soul. Published lists, however, such as the Rolling Stone Magazine “100 Greatest Singers of All Time,” often disappointed me. I tended to reject a vocalist who recorded flippant material, but not a singer who presented with a (classically) lovely voice. Tammy Wynette’s “Stand By Your Man” is just such a (classically) lovely song. 

Rev. Gary Davis

The representative record for each singer (accompanying the lists) may be the one you’d expect, or if not, then a solid starting point. Some of these musicians—Karen Dalton and Rev. Gary Davis, for example—might not appear on any other lists of this nature. Good. Investigate these marvelous artists with my blessing. And why, Dear Reader, should my list reinforce any others? (Nota bene: Twelve of my twenty singers did not appear on the Rolling Stone extravaganza.) Here we have a scatting, haunting, versatile, steaming, scuffling, powerful, sensitive, trailblazing, salty, enchanting group—and that’s just the women. The men will add the candors of gravel, work-fat vernacular of sinew, law-breaking impulses of restlessness, transcendence of zen, and gyration of dialect.

Freddie Mercury did not make my list. Tina Turner did not make my list. Patsy Cline did not make my list. Marvin Gaye did not make my list. They’re all very fine vocalists. But this gathering concerns itself with “unassailable” qualities. By that, I mean the shadow in the voice, how it burrows into reason long after it has burrowed into stark emotional discharge. How it may glide or stagger between the stations of crisis and (however naked) the stations of distrustful calm. Some of these vocals peaked like trumpets. Some negotiated new terrain where the words of a song (necessarily) gave way to sound-play. Some voices burned free of rooftops and treetops and fingertips, like late-day sunlight in early winter.

To me, each of these unassailable singers could answer my friend’s mother’s unanswerable question. Enjoy.  

Mahalia Jackson

The Ten Unassailable Female Vocalists of the Twentieth Century (with Representative Record + Year Recorded)

Betty Carter (“Sounds (Movin’ On)” 1980)

Karen Dalton (“Katie Cruel” 1971)

Barbara Dane (“Special Delivery Blues” 1957)

Aretha Franklin (“Respect” 1967)

Billie Holiday (“Strange Fruit” 1939)

Mahalia Jackson (“Keep Your Hand on the Plow” 1955)

Nina Simone (“Feeling Good” 1965)

Bessie Smith (“Down Hearted Blues” 1923)

Kitty Wells (“It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” 1952)

Tammy Wynette (“Stand by Your Man” 1968)

Next 5: Ella Fitzgerald, Janis Joplin, Jean Ritchie, Koko Taylor, Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

Van Morrison

The Ten Unassailable Male Vocalists of the Twentieth Century (with Representative Record + Year Recorded)

Louis Armstrong (“Heebie Jeebies” 1926)

Ray Charles (“I’ve Got a Woman” 1954)

Rev. Gary Davis (“Samson and Delilah” 1961)

Bob Dylan (“Like a Rolling Stone” 1965)

Roscoe Holcomb (“On Top of Old Smokey” 1961)

Robert Johnson (“Hell Hound on My Trail” 1937)

John Lennon (“Imagine” 1971)

Little Richard (“Long Tall Sally” 1956)                       

Van Morrison (“Brown Eyed Girl” 1967)

Elvis Presley (“Heartbreak Hotel” 1956)

Next 5: Johnny Cash, Sam Cooke, Howlin’ Wolf, Lead Belly, Jimmie Rodgers.

 Kitty Wells

Discography / Women

Betty Carter: “Sounds (Movin’ On)” from The Audience with Betty Carter (Bet-Car Records, 1980)

Karen Dalton: “Katie Cruel” from In My Own Time (Paramount Records, 1971)

Barbara Dane: “Special Delivery Blues” 1957 from Trouble in Mind (San Francisco Records, 1957)

Aretha Franklin: “Respect” b/w “Dr. Feelgood” (Atlantic, 1967)

Billie Holiday and Her Orchestra: “Strange Fruit” b/w “Fine and Mellow” (Commodore, 1939)

Mahalia Jackson: “Keep Your Hand on the Plow” from The World’s Greatest Gospel Singer (Columbia, 1955) [Arguably a more stirring rendition recorded live, with Duke Ellington; see: Duke Ellington Live at Newport 1958 (Columbia)]

Nina Simone: “Feeling Good” from I Put a Spell on You (Philips, 1965)

Bessie Smith: “Down Hearted Blues” b/w “Gulf Coast Blues” (Columbia, 1923)

Kitty Wells: “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” b/w “I Don’t Want Your Money, I Want Your Time” (Decca, 1952)
Tammy Wynette: “Stand by Your Man” b/w “I Stayed Long Enough” (Epic, 1968)

Roscoe Holcomb

Discography / Men

Louis Armstrong: “Heebie Jeebies” b/w “Muskrat Ramble” (OKeh, 1926)

Ray Charles and His Band: “I’ve Got a Woman” b/w “Come Back” (Atlantic, 1954)

Blind Gary Davis: “Samson and Delilah” from Harlem Street Singer (Prestige Bluesville,1961) [Arguably a more stirring rendition recorded live; see: Rev. Gary Davis “Samson and Delilah (If I Had My Way)” from The Reverend Gary Davis at Newport (Vanguard, 1968)]

Bob Dylan: “Like a Rolling Stone” from Highway 61 Revisited (Columbia,1965)

Roscoe Holcomb: “On Top of Old Smokey” from The Music of Roscoe Holcomb and Wade Ward (Smithsonian Folkways, 1962)                                                             

Robert Johnson: “Hell Hound on My Trail” b/w “From Four Until Late” (Vocalion, 1937)

John Lennon: “Imagine” from Imagine (Apple Records, 1971) [Arguably better performances with the Beatles, including, for example, “A Day in the Life” (1967), “Come Together” (1969), and “Revolution” (single version, 1968)]

Little Richard: “Long Tall Sally” b/w “Slippin’ and Slidin’ (Peepin’ and Hidin’)” (Specialty, 1956)

Van Morrison: “Brown Eyed Girl” b/w “Goodbye Baby (Baby Goodbye)” (Bang Records, 1967)

Elvis Presley: “Heartbreak Hotel” b/w “I Was the One” (RCA Victor, 1956)

Sources for discography: 45cat, Allmusic, Discogs, Smithsonian Folkways, Wikipedia. 

Betty Carter

Also See

Louis Armstrong: “Am Pluto Waterly Yours”

The Top 25 Most Important American Musicians

Jump Around: Top 25 Greatest Jump Blues Songs

The Shakers Era: Nearly Forgotten Rowdy Music

John Coltrane: Energy Kick