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Sorry, I was in California this past week, so I'm a little late with this...

Scott, you said
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If it was 'warped audio' then the guitars and fiddles and lap steel would sound out of tune.



They do. The fiddle sounds terrible; the guitars sound off to me, but I haven't checked it. What really came out was when I turned up the bass loud. It sounds bad and out of tune. All the vocals are off and there is a weird phasing sound at times. My guess is that it's just a bad video tape to digital video conversion. Or it could be the earpieces weren't working. It's not because they can't sing. Just not true. One performance would never kill 2-3 decades of absolute excellence.

I've heard George Strait live this past summer and he's fantastic in concert - no bad vocals that I could hear at all.

BTW, the Taylor Swift video that Sam posted has bad, off key vocals as well - especially at the beginning when she's playing guitar. But I don't think she's a bad singer or songwriter at all. But as an overall artist, she's just not there yet. She needs time and maturity. Give her some more years before you tout her as being some sort of female version of Bruce Springsteen. She's more like a slightly older Hannah Montana.

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In fact, I can't think of many country musicians I enjoy recent or in the past who I would call 'good' singers.




Then you must have never liked Randy Travis, Ray Price, Eddy Arnold, Larry Gatlin, Martina McBride, Trisha Yearwood, LeAnn Rimes, Vince Gill, or Raul Malo, just to name a few. If they aren't good singers than I guess I have no idea what your standards are.

Personally, I like not-so-perfect vocalists (Jerry Jeff Walker, Willie Nelson, Shooter Jennings, Robert Earl Keen, John Hiatt) and not just because I sing that way. I want something real, not something cute. I want something that's got substance and soul.

From Sam -
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Where is the command of the English language?




I guess it's back in England where it belongs...

To Axegrinder01: I couldn't agree more.



Dan,

I agree that a single performance can't kill decades of solid performance/excellence. Have yet another listen to this track. The guys were not nailing it that night - that's all. That's o.k. I do not hear nearly the off-pitch character of the instrumentation compared to the singing. I agree with you that likely there was a monitoring issue at hand. That seems typical with live TV performances in general.

When I say 'good' I should have clarified what I meant by 'good'. By that I mean that as a trained 'good', versus subjectively judged 'good'. I enjoy many of the singers you list; particularly Travis, Gill and Nelson. If you stacked them up against a studio singer - they would not hold a candle to the studio cats, even in their own genre. A well-trained studio singer can copy the 'twanginess' of country without much difficulty at all, then turn around and do an operatic track, then R&B, etc. My sister is one such singer. She has a regular paying gig for a couple of vocal music publishing companies where she goes into the studio and lays down ridiculously difficult; sometimes quite inharmonic parts, as a coloratura soprano. These tracks are aimed a college choirs where the directors sometimes present these things as a challenge - not because there is actually a paying listening audience for such stuff. That's her classical training, but what she really excels at is R&B and country. Her performance of 'Stand By Your Man' will make your hair stand on end in delight. Keep in mind that she's from plain-jane midwest Michigan, with nary a southern accent - but she pours it on when she needs to. She can then turn around and knock-off Oleta Adams and even copy the covered nature of some of Oleta's vowel sounds. Then do a light and airy indie-rock thing - you name it, she can nail it. She's 'Good'. But she's never had popular commercial success (really only shopped a 4 track demo years ago). She does have pretty doggoned good success on a per-hour payment basis.

I did not equate financial or popular success with 'Good'. I guess that's the whole point of the thread. Financial success in the music business has rarely been related to musical talent alone. Much can be attributed to business acumen and good old-fashioned luck and opportunism.

Just this past weekend, I listened to a duo CD between Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris. When Emmylou Harris joins in or takes a lead, it gives me goosebumps. Man I love it. But she's not a 'good' singer in the way I would describe it above. Doesn't mean she hasn't had success or provided years of enjoyment for her listeners.

Well, enough about that. I don't expect you to agree with me about the particular YouTube video. I think we probably agree much more than disagree about the definition of what's 'Good' and what's not. Perhaps my treatment of the topic is based on recently reading Malcom Gladwell's book called "Outliers". Could go on, but it's an easy read that's probably at your local library.

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