Call On Me For Magic: The Last Great Stevie Vocal Performance?

[BigAl84]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6IFz4sJugY

Every couple of years I'll come back to listen to this song and it shocks me every time. It represents everything I loved about her voice between '96-'01.
Strength, softness, elasticity...all demonstrated in one song. In my mind, it's one of her last great vocal performances. Alongside Silver Springs and At Last.

If anyone could have nailed a "Songbook" release of standards, in 2000/2001 she would have hit it out of the park.

[mitzo]

Agreed. She needed to do more of this while she could. But with Stevie, a lot of discussions quickly devolve into what she could have, should have done. A very frustrating person to be a fan of. So much wasted talent, so many lost opportunities.

[Macfan4life]

I misread the thread as Stevie's greatest vocal performance. I was like? WTF
I would say Street Angel era was her last great vocal performance. This song is better than most of her post Dance stuff. In that sense I would say yes. But her vocals got flat when she gave up smoking. I like all her Pre-Dance stuff excluding RAL.

[bombaysaffires]

I had heard about this song but don't think I'd ever actually heard it. Googling around I saw this comment by David Kahne, who was one of her producers, and who wrote the song:

He wrote this on his website about the tune awhile back. http://www.vincristin.com/songs/call-on-me-for-magic

This is a song I wrote that Stevie sang for me. I have to say that I wrote it for my daughter, Jessica who died of a brain tumor when she was 6. Such a sweetheart. I wrote another song for her too, called Imogine, but I’ve never recorded it. I like the magic theme with Stevie’s tone. Gorgeous, and so kind of her to sing it for me. I thought it might be good for a movie one day. So far, not…

so seems like it was never intended for a Stevie album, but she agreed to sing it as a favor to him. Sweet.

[soul_drifter333]

At this point the only thing that I think might work well is an acoustic album with a couple country songs. Something where she does shout out the lyrics. I thought For What It's Worth came out well. At least she finally showed some dynamics in her voice.

[David]

I think her last amazing studio vocal was Not Fade Away for that Buddy Holly project. She was outstanding with that one. I don’t remember the year.

Her last amazing live vocal was Destiny in Las Vegas, September 1994. I’m exaggerating, I guess — but only a little.