Age and singing voices
Some singers who have clear and ringing voices, especially in the upper register, find that as they age they just can’t sing that way anymore.
But some can (by the way, Elvin Bishop wrote the song and is playing the guitar, but the lead singer is Mickey Thomas):
That was 1975. This is 2011; I believe Thomas is about sixty-one years old here. He looks pretty good, too, considering. Unfortunately the audio quality isn’t as clear as the first clip, but I think it’s easy to tell his voice has held up nicely (the song starts at :46, but for some reason I can’t cue it to start then):
ADDENDUM:
I managed to find a video of Mickey Thomas singing the song just a few months ago, in March of 2023. That means he’s 73 here. Still looks and sounds darn good. The guitarist isn’t Elvin Bishop, though:
I was watching one of those “vocal coach reacts to [singer]” videos a few years back and the Aussie reactor had never heard of the South Korean singer before so knew absolutely nothing about her, but as the song progressed, the coach said “This woman is at least 30 years old” and explained that she was doing somerthing during her singing that requires some sort of calcification of the vocal cords that takes time to develop as we age, so that prompted the age guess.
The singer was (IIRC) 36 at the time of the recording of that song, so… good guess, it seemed. The coach was definitely saying that this process is a good thing for singers and apparently the ones who learn to use the vocal cord changes are those that can continue to sing well up into their 60’s and 70’s and prompt us listeners to say “Dang! Their voice really held up well!”
I don’t recall which song was being sung or reacted to, but if youd like to hear a recent recording from the singer (who is 43 or 44 now) covering Adele’s “Easy on Me” then here ya go –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxaV21Si0s0
Way back in the 60s Judy Collins was the first female singer I fell in love with. As I recall from her bio, she ran into vocal problems in her forties.
She got herself hence to a singing coach and restored her voice in time for the “Send in the Clowns” portion of her career.
She has kept up her voice amazingly well. Here she is at the age of 83(!), sounding great and looking good.
–Judy Collins, “Both Sides Now” (Shrewsbury Folk Festival 2022)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nmc7h0guBJI
Judy always seemed pretty sensible for a 60s person — aside from that eulogy song for Che Guevara. She has even written several books.
huxley:
I saw her perform live just a couple of years ago. She looked great and sounded great.
If I’m not mistaken, she got sober in the 90s and has been pretty stable ever since.
Fred Astaire was a great singer throughout his career. Not a great voice as such, but he knew exactly how to use what he had. He lost a fourth or a fifth off the top as he aged, but picked his material accordingly, and filled out his lower register more. He was a consummate musician.
Bing Crosby had a fabulous instrument with a big upper register on his baritone in the 1930s, but lost that top octave by the late Sixties. I find his later stuff pretty unlistenable. I don’t think there was a better male singer when he was in his prime.
Sinatra lost a lot off the top as well, but was canny not to show that lack as much in his last two decades. The phrasing and intonation were always still there.
And just to veer off a bit, I heard Jo Stafford’s You Belong to Me on the car radio this evening. She was better than all of them.
Yeah, she”s pretty awsome.If there were more of her and less of that shouty guy …
The music of that era was … not so great. But of course musical tastes differ wildly. We thought “Disco sucks”, and all that. Along with all whinny emo music sung by sensitive and needy males. Or so that was our strongly held view.
Fleetwood Mac put out its last album of any interest as far as my young life was concerned, and the Steve Miller Band which I had found so fresh retrospectively, plopped out of the can fully curdled in my own era.
I suppose when we needed a dose of falsetto singing back then we’d leave the radio station on while Earth Wind and Fire or the Isley Brothers did one of their That’s The Way of the … Harvest for the …. World songs. I still like those two. Probably quite a bit better than I did at the time.
We were too busy mining the 1960s rock which somewhat older pals directed us toward – Dave Edmunds for example- to try and fish through the mostly trash of 1975. “The Best of Spirit” album from two years earlier still had us playing “It’s Nature’s Way” or ” I Got a Line on You” on the juke box when the band was not there or playing in the music bars.
I think the drinking age has since been raised. For a while it was fun. Grab yor license, hop on your ” bike” and go. Everyone had a motorcycle ( and a car) then.
Though, reflecting, I think the band America was busy
… and it sounded different, along with Jeff Beck’s reappearance; and Peter Frampton had dropped a fresh sounding album too about that time.
Don’t know if any of the people I mentioned can still sing. Those that are still living, that is.
Interesting video though. You put a lot of work in this blog.
No wonder I kept thinking that had to be Jefferson Starship whenever I hear “Fooled Around and Fell in Love” all those years.
Another singer whose voice aged remarkably well was the recently departed Tony Bennett.
Here he is on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964:
https://youtu.be/hT5VOnaGRSU?si=BaA88zu6Rjt8nTKk
And in 2014, 50 years later, performing with Lady Gaga:
https://youtu.be/EOKUSSntO4o?si=qMKnHAmO3j26kaxG
You can hear that his voice changed, but damn he was still good.
I saw him perform in 1995, shortly after the release of “Steppin’ Out With My Baby,” at the “Live 105 Acoustic Christmas” concert. Live 105 was the ‘alternative rock’ station in SF at the time, but Bennett brought the house down.
Frank Sinatra lost his voice as he aged. Sara Vaughan kept her voice as she aged, but died at age 67.
Concur about Stafford.
Wore out a number of Limeliters vinyl. When their tenor, Glenn Yarborough, went on his own and aged, some of his earlier pieces had lost the high notes. Covered it so that if you didn’t know the earlier one, you didn’t catch it.
Jo Stafford is a great, and in proof thereof
Jonathan and Darleen bring us: I Love Paris
https://youtu.be/R_VJ6dRCoq4?si=p4kAQOyvmzA-q_ma/
One of my aunts, in her late 80’s, suffering from cancer and dementia, sang a hymn a cappella at a family Christmas get together. She sounded great, just belted it out. I was stunned. Both she and the “talented” aunt had been professional gospel singers back in the day, guess there was a reason for that.
Here’s Glenn Hughes at 71 years old, still with pipes for days.
Pop music= Yawn.
But bluegrass is wonderful!
Cicero:
Interesting that you put that song in the “pop” category. I see it as a combination of an R&B base, plus gospel vocals, with a blues guitar solo.
1. not difficult to keep your voice if you are using microphones and have minimal technique. The main culprits are breathiness, strain, and shouting, which are related
The real miracle is opera singers who project over orchestras without electric amplification. Many keep their voices and move to lieder in maturity due to rock solid technique.
2. 3rd example clip has some heavy reverb applied to fill in the voice and blur rough acoustic edges. Same thing was done often as part of Big Band era esthetics. You can hear it also in later recordings of Ella Fitzgerald and other chanteuses.
Good maintenance. I’d go see that.
On the sadder side: I saw Three Dog Night on their final tour and their mistake was trying to hit those highest notes. Heard many a crack that night.