Listellaneous: The Friday Five: Favorite Male Singers/Vocalists

Welcome to The Friday Five! It sounds like an action movie, but it's not; rather, it's a weekly series where bloggers are given a topic and are assigned to come up with a five-song list fitting that topic. This Friday, the topic/question is: WHAT ARE YOUR TOP FIVE FAVORITE MALE VOCALISTS?

(As with all my lists, what follows is in no particular order.)

Sam Cooke

Sam Cooke's voice is as smooth as a chocolate milkshake. His singing is so easy to listen to that it's soothing; put on a Cooke album after a hard day and you'll be feeling better within seconds. I promise. However, it's not just the technical perfection that makes Cooke's voice great; it's the soul and emotion that he put into every song he sang. With subtle, almost imperceptible changes in his singing, he could convey a range of emotions, from loneliness to ecstasy to fiery passion to true love. Of all the voices on this list, Cooke's is the one I covet most.

Johnny Cash

I like to think of Johnny Cash as a troubadour or a balladeer. One of those people who used to roam the world with their guitars, telling about what they saw through evocative songs that they wrote themselves. Cash's voice has a haunting quality that reminds me of those legendary singers. Personally, I feel that said haunting quality is that he obviously feels strongly about everything he sang. The listener immediately feels what he's feeling. That's what made his story songs so particularly resonant. It's also what gets him a spot on this list.

Tony Bennett

Ready for a controversial opinion? I think that Tony Bennett is a better vocalist than Frank Sinatra. Now, before you kill me, let me say that I love Sinatra. I admire his skill and I admire his longevity. That being said, Sinatra doesn't get me to FEEL IT the way that Tony Bennett does. When Sinatra sings "Fly Me To The Moon," I admire the technical brilliance of Sinatra's singing. When Bennett sings the same song, however, I'm right there with him, experiencing the same emotions. In other words, Tony Bennett has made me cry and Frank Sinatra hasn't. That's why Bennett is on this list and Sinatra isn't.

(By the way, consider this: SINATRA HIMSELF said that Bennett was the better singer. I'm not alone in my opinion!)

Tom Jones

I hesitated to include Tom Jones on this list, since pop culture has made such a joke of him over the past couple decades. After much deliberation, I decided to go with my heart. After all, Tom Jones is a great singer, and he's only gotten better as he's grown older. In fact, I prefer the Tom Jones of today to the one of the '60s and '70s. His voice has grown a little weathered and acquired a little grit, and it serves him really well. He can still belt it out (as he always could), but, now, there's an extra touch of authenticity that wasn't there before. It's that touch of age that has turned Jones from a good vocalist into a great one.

The Beach Boys

You don't have to say anything; I already know I'm cheating. I had to include The Beach Boys on this list, though, and you can't talk about one Beach Boy and not talk about the others. After all, it's the harmonies that turned a group of good singers into GREAT ones! Obviously, vocal harmonies are nothing new, but The Boys were the first ones to take the harmony into the recording studio and really do something new with them. Basically, Brian Wilson took the same techniques Phil Spector had developed for instruments and applied them to vocals. Double-tracking, reverb, and other recording trickery helped turn The Beach Boys's harmonies into something amazing, something that had never been heard before and will never be heard in quite the same way again.