Rock Voices

Finally, I've found a radio station that I enjoy.  When we moved to this state, I gravitated naturally to the sports talk stations, but the more I listened to them, the more I grew to dislike them, both for being overly parochial and for being insanely immature.  It was like listening with frat brothers who had never grown up.

Since my car's as old as it is, I don't have Sirius radio.  Karen tried to get some attachment that would allow it, but given that my car is a 2004 Volvo XC 90, satellite radio isn't compatible somehow.  That leaves me to whims of local radio.  Finally, after nearly four years, I found a classic rock station here that lets me listen to bands that I grew up listening to:  Aerosmith, the Steve Miller Band, Fleetwood Mac, Heart, Chicago, the Eagles and others.  Interestingly, I get to learn some of the lyrics to songs I only absentmindedly listened to growing up.

One thing this station does is repeat a lot of the same songs over a two-week period.  Were it any other music, I might be annoyed.  But since I really like this music, I enjoy it.

The Who gets played a lot (and thankfully Pink Floyd does not).  I kept hearing You Better You Bet and noticed just how much Roger Daltrey gets into the lyrics.  Now, I'm not opposed to listening to Mr. Daltrey; I think he has a fine rock voice.  His work on this song is phenomenal.  It sells the song.  But I wonder whether I'd want him singing Christmas carols.

There are other rockers out there who fit into the same category.  Chief among them is Janis Joplin.  She sounds like a cat being tortured on a tin roof.  But her voice makes the song Me and Bobby McGee.  I can't imagine anyone doing it better.  In the same vein is Melissa Etheridge.  I would not buy an album of standards from her, but I'd listen to Come to My Window gladly.  It's another perfect rock voice.

Geddy Lee soars as Rush's lead vocalist.  Were he singing anything else it would be horrible, probably.  Same with David Lee Roth.  His is a rock voice; his forays into other genres like country did not end well.

Can anyone imagine Axl Rose singing a Christmas carol?  Not me.  But Welcome to the Jungle would be less if it were sung by any other artist.  It sounds weird calling him and the rest of these singers artists, but in truth, they are, even if they don't sound like conventional vocalists, because what they do is art.  It just so happens that in this format, I appreciate their art. 

Although I'm older, I can appreciate art in various forms.  Growing up, we had to listen to classical music, or show tunes, or Herb Alpert.  Even though it was the Sixties, we weren't exposed to The Beatles, the Stones, the Doors or any of the counterculture artists because our parents were still stuck in the Fifties -- and not the Fifties that involved Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley.  I still appreciate classical music (although I'm no fan of opera) and there are Broadway tunes I like.  In fact, about the only genres I don't like are opera, gansta rap, reggae and perhaps some other stuff, but I like most mainstream genres. 

I've just come to appreciate that there are voices that belong in one category or another.  Not everyone can sing like Carrie Underwood or Faith Hill and do justice to both Christmas carols as well as country music.  Listening to Josh Groban try to sing a heavy metal song might well prove embarrassing.   But for every multitalented singer there's an Axl Rose, a Geddy Lee or a Janis Joplin who can bang out a tune that just sound right.

Thanks, Roger Daltrey.

There's no question who you are.

(c) 2017 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles