As far as female vocalists, I love Heart, Joan Jett, Courtney Love, Laura Branigan, Linda Ronstadt, Barbra Streisand - or going back to when I was a child, Aileen Quinn, the original Annie.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I love female singer-songwriters!
I love the music of Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu and more recently the music of Laura Marling. All these women share a strength and a wisdom in their voices and music that really makes me want to make music and sing.
Female artists I love the most are Fiona Apple, Paramour and Regina Spektor - those girls that really write amazing songs themselves, and they're younger and cool. I'm not quite sure I could ever write songs like any of them, but if I could, I would.
Aretha Franklin, she's just the most amazing singer ever. But I think there are so many singers that I just loved and sang along to on the radio. I guess I just enjoy trying out different styles along the way.
My mother had a great vinyl collection, and she was constantly playing female singer-songwriters. I first learned about classic song structures by listening to them, and Laura Nyro particularly stood out. Her voice was outside what you'd usually hear on the radio; that really appealed to me.
Alanis Morissette - I love how she's not afraid to say what she wants to say. Love it or hate it, she's going to say it. And her vocals are crazy; they're amazing, and I also love how her music is really organic.
The male singers who had the same range I did, when I was growing up, didn't do much for me. But put on Nina Simone, Carmen McRae or Nancy Wilson, and I'd be in seventh heaven. Female vocalists just did more with their voices, and that's why I paid more attention to them.
I actually prefer female voices to listen to, mostly, but among the male singers whose voices I like are Jeff Buckley, Art Garfunkel, that sort of voice. Contemporary crooners rather than rockers.
When I started singing, I was covering Lauryn Hill, Brandy, and all the girl groups of the '90s. It's just what I would listen to and what I was singing when anybody asked me to sing for them.
I usually listen to various kind of singers. Curtis Mayfield was my favorite. James Brown, Tina Turner, queen of soul, I started to get that musical essence from that time before I even do my first song.