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Chi è il miglior cantante di sempre?

RS USA stila la lista dei 100 migliori vocalist di tutti i tempi

12.11.2008
Sappiamo che le classifiche vi piacciono tanto e ogni volta che ne pubblichiamo una si scatenano una ridda di vostri commenti sul blog che noi amiamo tanto leggere. Quindi non potevamo lasciarci sfuggire l'occasione di proporvi l'ultima (in ordine di tempo) classifica speciale stilata dai nostri cugini americani. Stavolta Rolling Stone USA ha voluto decretare i 100 migliori cantanti di tutti i tempi. Qui sotto potete leggere la top ten, mentre qui trovate la lista completa.
1 Aretha Franklin
2 Ray Charles
3 Elvis Presley
4 Sam Cooke
5 John Lennon
6 Marvin Gaye
7 Bob Dylan
8 Otis Redding
9 Stevie Wonder
10 James Brown
N.B.: per ognuno dei cantanti in top ten RS ha fatto scrivere la rispettiva scheda a una star della musica. Per esempio, il profilo di Aretha Franklin è stato scritto da Mary J Blige, quello di Elvis Presley da Robert Plant, quello di Bob Dylan da Bono, quello di James Brown da Iggy Pop e così via. E ora scatenatevi e diteci chi secondo voi manca in questa classifica!
1|Aretha Franklin
by Mary J. Blige

Photo: Goodwin/Redferns/Retna

Born
March 25th, 1942
Key Tracks
"(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," "Respect," "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)," "Think," "Chain of Fools"
Influenced
Whitney Houston, Alicia Keys, Aaron Neville, Annie Lennox

You know a force from heaven. You know something that God made. And Aretha is a gift from God. When it comes to expressing yourself through song, there is no one who can touch her. She is the reason why women want to sing.
Aretha has everything — the power, the technique. She is honest with everything she says. Everything she's thinking or dealing with is all in the music, from "Chain of Fools" to "Respect" to her live performances. And she has total confidence; she does not waver at all. I think her gospel base brings that confidence, because in gospel they do not play around — they're all about chops, who has the vocal runs. This is no game to her.
As a child, I used to listen to Aretha's music because my mom played "Do Right Woman" and "Ain't No Way" every single day. I would see my mother cry when she listened to those songs, and I'd cry too. Then I discovered her on my own with the Sparkle soundtrack. I must have played "Giving Him Something He Can Feel" 30 times in a row; eventually, I connected the dots to that voice my mom was listening to.
Even the way she pronounces words is amazing: In "Giving Him Something He Can Feel," when she sings, "Many say that I'm too young" — the way she says "I'm," you can almost see her saying it, like she's all in your face, but you're still right with her. You can really visualize her hands when she sings, "You're tying both of my hands," on "Ain't No Way" — it's the powerful way she hits the word "both."
When you watch her work, you can see why Aretha is who she is. When we did the song "Don't Waste Your Time" on my album Mary, she just went in there and ate that record like Pac-Man. She could be doing a church vocal run, and it would turn into some jazz-space thing, something I never encountered before. You'd say, "Where did that come from? Where did she find that note?"
It's beautiful to see, because it helps people with a lack of confidence in their ability, like myself. I look at her and think, "I need a piece of that. Whatever that is."








3|Elvis Presley
by Robert Plant

Photo: Time & Life Pictures/Getty

Born
January 8th, 1935 (died August 16th, 1977)
Key Tracks
"Mystery Train," "Hound Dog," "Suspicious Minds"
Influenced
Bono, Bruce Springsteen

There is a difference between people who sing and those who take that voice to another, otherworldly place, who create a euphoria within themselves. It's transfiguration. I know about that. And having met Elvis, I know he was a transformer.
The first Elvis song I heard was "Hound Dog." I wasn't equipped with any of the knowledge I have now, about the Big Mama Thornton version or where all that swing was coming from. I just heard this voice, and it was absolutely, totally in its own place. The voice was confident, insinuating and taking no prisoners. He had those great whoops and diving moments, those sustains that swoop down to the note like a bird of prey. I took all that in. You can hear that all over Led Zeppelin.
When I met Elvis with Zeppelin, after one of his concerts in the early Seventies, I sized him up. He wasn't quite as tall as me. But he had a singer's build. He had a good chest — that resonator. And he was driven. "Anyway You Want Me" is one of the most moving vocal performances I've ever heard. There is no touching "Jailhouse Rock" and the stuff recorded at the King Creole sessions. I can study the Sun sessions as a middle-aged guy looking back at a bloke's career and go, "Wow, what a great way to start." But I liked the modernity of the RCA stuff. "I Need Your Love Tonight" and "A Big Hunk o' Love" were so powerful — those sessions sounded like the greatest place to be on the planet.
At that meeting, Jimmy Page joked with Elvis that we never soundchecked — but if we did, all I wanted to do was sing Elvis songs. Elvis thought that was funny and asked me, "Which songs do you sing?" I told him I liked the ones with all the moods, like that great country song "Love Me" — "Treat me like a fool/Treat me mean and cruel/But love me." So when we were leaving, after a most illuminating and funny 90 minutes with the guy, I was walking down the corridor. He swung 'round the door frame, looking quite pleased with himself, and started singing that song: "Treat me like a fool. . . ." I turned around and did Elvis right back at him. We stood there, singing to each other.
By then, because of the forces around him, it was difficult for him to stretch out with more contemporary songwriters. When he died, he was 42. I'm 18 years older than that now. But he didn't have many fresh liaisons to draw on — his old pals weren't going to bring him the new gospel. I know he wanted to express more. But what he did was he made it possible for me, as a singer, to become otherworldly