Quote:
Originally Posted by Macfan4life
I think Street Angel was the last of the high notes. She still had the Stevie rasp. When she quit smoking and hired a voice coach for The Dance, she was flat ever since.
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For me, the joy of the Street Angel concerts was that she had her vibrato back. She even said on the radio that year how she had her vibrato back. I was delighted because in 1991, she had no vibrato and I missed it. Her vocals sounded so forced, so unnuanced in 1991 (as they also had intermittently in 1989—listen to
Beauty and the Beast on the Houston radio show).
Bummer that, in recent years, she is back to being nearly vibrato-free (except I suppose on
Landslide). She is back to braying like an equine. I think the volume of the band pushes her to increase her air expulsion, as if she were competing with Waddy Wachtel’s amplifier. I was hoping she would slide into old age the Judy Garland way: with a hyperemphatic vibrato that shook the timbers. I don’t care as much about tonality if there’s a tantalizing vibrato. Pop singer voices should wobble up and down.