I saw Close and she was good. But, she does this funny thing with her voice in that she sings in a lower range in a strong voice and then when she goes up an octave, it is this little head voice. Close has only one and one-half lungs or something like that due to a childhood illness. So, that may have something to do with it.
But, BB was positively a show stopping belter from the old days. It was almost too much voice, if that is possile
And, as you know, her vibrato is Nicksian
As an aside, I saw Petula Clark in the road show and let me just saw I wish she had put on a bedazzled gown and lipsynched "Downtown" because she was horrible. Joe, however, on the road was great and very nice looking. He opened the second act by singing "Sunset Blvd." in a square cut swimsuit
