Singers who could once sing but no longer can

And yes, before you bitches even start, I know Whitney can no longer sing because she's 6 feet under. But she did seem to lose her voice in a pretty dramatic way in the last decade of her life.

I'm surprised Mariah only sticks one finger in her ear when she's singing, you want to stick a finger in both ears, far more effective.

It can be a combo of things I think--poor singing technique, drinking, smoking, etc. I know she was never a "good" singer to begin with, but Courtney Love's voice is fucking fried as it stands today. Too many years of scream-singing and chain-smoking.

All Mariah's dog whistles (so fucking annoying and stupid) are lipped. I hate her voice back then and now.

Bono- too much touring.

Are you seriously asking why Whitney Houston's voice decline dramatically?

Ann Wilson is still a good singer, but it seems she can no longer hit the higher notes anymore.

Elton John.

Add Steve Perry to the list :-( I believe age, plus they blew their vocals out hitting high notes in their youth.

Vocal cords age too!

Most rock and pop musicians have no clue about correct vocal technique, and they overuse or completely fry their vocal chords by 35.

There are exceptions, of course, I went to a James Taylor concert last year and Taylor was singing live... and at age seventy his voice is completely unchanged! Really, same tone, none of the usual age-related huskiness or deepening, he was singing his old song in the same key as fifty years ago and hit all the same notes. He never had a good voice or anything, he just has a singing voice that didn't change over fifty years.

Tony Bennet is ANCIENT, so he can be excused. But he still sounds like himself. Bless him.

Dionne Warwick sounds like she smoked too many cigarettes over the years.

Paul Simon

Julie Andrews

As voices age, singers strain more and more to hit the high notes. This leads to damage sometimes before they even realize it.

Springsteen seemed like he was losing his, around 15 years ago, but now he sounds great again. Maybe it can be reversed.

R14 Julie Andrews had throat surgery which dramatically changed her singing voice. She claims there was nothing wrong with her (no nodules, no cancer, etc.) so I'm still not sure why she was even getting the surgery. Very weird. I had a thyroidectomy 10 years ago due to thyroid cancer, and they had to clear out a bunch of cancer tissue in my neck. It was an extensive surgery and required them to move my oropharyngeal nerves during the procedure, which is very risky and can result in you losing the ability to speak if they are damaged. I was fortunate to regain my voice, though it was weak for months. I remember struggling to sing along with songs for around 2 years after the surgery, but I eventually gained more control over my voice. The surgery did change my singing voice significantly—my voice is much deeper than it was before.

Kathie Lee still sounds mediocre.

Julie Andrews' voice declined quickly, long before the stage Victor/Victoria.

I just have Marni Nixon do all my vocals.

Donna Summer still sounded really good when I saw her in concert a few years before her death.

I saw Petula Clark a few weeks ago. Her voice has diminished but for 86, her voice has held up well.

Bonnie Raitt is in her late '60s. I saw her last year and she was still able to hold the note on I Can't Make You Love Me. She's kept her voice in good shape.

Now, I know Madonna has never been a great vocalist. But she's really deteriorated in the last few years. She now sounds out of breath in addition to being off-key. Her voice is a lot deeper than it was a few years ago.

r4 obviously lives under a hateful rock.

Mariah has worked her ass off for 30 years, not just traveling the globe, but actually writing her songs...which requires a lot of singing to figure out which direction the song is going in. Plus her remixes. She ain't Janet releasing an album every 7 years that other people wrote the songs on. Mariah released an album every year in the 90's and people wonder why she had the 2 day breakdown in 2001.

As mentioned, your voice changes as you age. The muscles powering your vocal cords weaken, making the vocal cords less flexible and elastic. Your respiratory system weakens, diminishing the air movement in your lungs, which gives your voice power and range. While men's voices tend to get higher as they age, women's voices tend to deepen, making it much harder to hit those high notes.

[quote]he was singing his old song in the same key as fifty years ago and hit all the same notes

James Taylor's career depends on singing his songs exactly the way they were recorded - his old, decrepit, culturally conservative audience wouldn't stand for anything else. I'm sure he's taken care of his voice because he knows which side his bread is buttered on.

[Quote] which requires a lot of singing to figure out which direction the song is going in

Not if Trey Lorenz does guide vocals.

The NYE disaster on ABC exposed the state of Mariah's vocals. It was amusing but also kind of sad.

Debbie Gibson, her voice is completely gone.

Liza owns this thread. Sad to say.

Sting actually still has his voice. We all know it's lifestyle. If you drink, smoke,drugs it all comes at a price.

Dolly Parton unfortunately lip synced much of the last concert of hers I attended.

Celine Dion has been lip-syncing her big notes for over a decade.

I saw Betty Buckley in concert recently and she sounded like a dying cow. You would think that someone with as much theater training as her would still have some of her voice left, but sadly no. Same goes for LuPone and Bernadette Peters.

Paul McCartney's geriatric croaking has got to be THE definitive answer to this question.

And yet he won’t stop.

Kris Kristofferson was never the best singer in the world but recently he has lost the ability completely.

Classically trained opera singers have generally got a much better chance of singing well into older age, especially if they've got a rock-solid technique from a young age, and restrict themselves to works and roles which don't suit their voice. Two very famous examples: Maria Callas pushed herself (or was pushed) into roles that didn't suit her, and her voice deteriorated fairly young. At the other end of the spectrum, Luciano Pavarotti managed to continue singing well into his 60s, aided by flawless technique, a light voice, and a long career built on roles that fit his voice perfectly. But do check out the link: a 92 old anonymous gent singing 'Nessun Dorma' (a Pavarotti signature aria), and doing a surprisingly good job at it.

Yeah, I'm very curious how much of Celine's voice is still left. The ending of My Heart Will Go On is lipped. For someone who has taken good care of her voice, she hasn't been able to fight off the effects of aging on her voice. Her voice is also much deeper and much more coarse.

Paul Young is another. Apparently he cannot even sing anymore but still tours.

Joni Mitchell owns this thread. She lost her lovely soprano voice at an early age due to chain smoking.

Jon Bon Jovi's voice is shot these days. He was struggling and straining big time at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year to get those mostly weal vocals out.

Does Mariah Carey come out on stage and SIT DOWN to sing?

JFC! That's a shameless lazy cow move!

R36 Actually Joni's voice deepened, but by 2000 it was still a beautiful voice. Full of character. Then it went completely. Marianne Faithfull is another example or age and smoke and booze ravaging a voice into something interesting. I prefer the later Marianne Faithful's broken voice to the young version. This last weekend both Neil Young and Dylan performed in Hyde Park. Recordings present Young's voice still in its fragile beauty, and Dylan's an unrecognizable croak. Odd, would have guessed it would have been the other way around.

We'll never know how Joni's voice would've developed without the chain-smoking since age 9, sadly. Her early soprano was a bit too birdy at times in my opinion. The "Hejira" era had the perfect mix of rasp and clarity.

Carly Simon just turned 74.

Carly still sounds decent to me. Raspier than she was in her youth, and her voice doesn't soar like it once did, but she still sounds okay.

[quote]There are exceptions, of course, I went to a James Taylor concert last year and Taylor was singing live... and at age seventy his voice is completely unchanged! Really, same tone, none of the usual age-related huskiness or deepening, he was singing his old song in the same key as fifty years ago and hit all the same notes. He never had a good voice or anything, he just has a singing voice that didn't change over fifty years.

Ella Fitzgerald was singing like no one's business in her golden years. I couldn't believe she had the range and clarity at that age.

Annie Lennox has held up well.

Cher still sounds amazing. Her voice is still strong and powerful. It's like she's some sort of freak of nature. While Cher's peers have faded, the ol' broad has still got it babe.

Yes, there's a video from Montreux I believe of Ella in or around 1977 and she still sounded incredible, considering this was a bit past her peak era.

Here's Stevie Nicks at this year's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Like James Taylor her voice was never very good... it's just unchanged by time. Her voice is just as flat and has just as limited a range as it did back in the seventies.

I thought this thread was about singers who can no longer sing.

Don Dokken

David Coverdale

and

Lou Gramm

come to mind.

I think James Taylor sounds terrible now. His was the worst performance at the Joni birthday tribute last year.

Paul McCartney. Omg. Did you hear him at the Queen@60 concert i think it was at Buckingham Palace?

Cheyl

McCartney must really enjoy performing and touring. Lord knows he doesn't need the $$$

[quote] There are exceptions, of course, I went to a James Taylor concert last year and Taylor was singing live... and at age seventy his voice is completely unchanged! Really, same tone, none of the usual age-related huskiness or deepening, he was singing his old song in the same key as fifty years ago and hit all the same notes. He never had a good voice or anything, he just has a singing voice that didn't change over fifty years.

Maybe, but most of what he's written was within a relatively small range. And he is singing about a half octave lower than he used to - he's lost some of his range.

Carole King's voice is all but gone, and before her health issues, Joni Mitchell's singing voice was also a shadow of its former self. They'd been using those voices for fifty years, though.

Anita Baker is another singer who lost a lot of her voice, both in range and tone.

Tracey Thorn is an example of a singer that's had changes in their voice, but still sounds like themselves.

She's acknowledged that her range is now a few notes lower than it used to be, and you can definitely hear the changes in her voice. But it still has many of the qualities that I originally appreciated about it.

Same voice, 30+ years prior.

Last I heard, Joni Mitchell couldn't even speak due to a major health problem. Her voice changed dramatically over the years but she'd write songs that fit her voice at that time.

She had an aneurysm a few years ago, R57. She can speak now, I believe, but doesn't do so publicly....I'm guessing she can speak conversationally but perhaps not well enough to speak to a crowd.

Um r39, Dylan could never sing to begin with.

I would assume as R54 says, it has more to do with range than age whether you sound ok?

A Carole King concert, "Live at Montreux", has recently been reissued. I watched a clip on YouTube and I thought she sounded very rough. Obviously, her voice was never pretty/smooth. But it doesn't surprise me that her voice never aged well.

Interestingly, Madonna's voice has gotten stronger. At a concert a few years back, she did well with some songs she sang with just a guitar

Patti Lupone's voice is fully intact. She even sang from Evita on last years Tonys

All singers will have voices that change and lose some qualities due to age.

Joni Mitchell actually did some interesting things in the 90s and early 00s because while her trademark soprano was gone, she had great interpretive powers, and she pushed jazz phrasings to the forefront.

Shirley Horn is another singer who had a decline in health, but her interpretive powers were unparalleled. What she couldn't do in octaves, she communicated in emotion.

Joni hates the vocals on her early albums - she felt she was still under the influence of people like Joan Baez and Judy Collins and hadn't discovered her own style yet. She put out a box set a few years ago and refused to include anything from her first 3 albums, which I thought was a bit silly.

I think For the Roses is where she really started to develop and explore her own natural range, which is a bit deeper (helped by the smokes, no doubt).

Kelly Clarkson needs to take it easy before she starts losing her voice. You can tell that her vocal chords are already stressed when she speaks/sings.

R59 Yeah, that's the customary critique by many who never liked anything about Dylan. Most of the western world, at least of a certain generation, embraced all the quirks of his many voices (and there were very, very different voices of Freewheelin' to Blonde on Blonde, to Nashville Skyline, to Empire Burlesque to the bizarre American Songbook period of the last decade). I'd suggest no one with an open mind wouldn't acknowledge that the voice/singer of the Blood on the Tracks/Rolling Thunder was "good" by any measure. What you heard this weekend, while curiously interesting, was a residue of any of the previous Dylans.

Bob Weir, of the Grateful Dead and Rate of. His voice was never technically great to begin with, but was expressive and oddly sweet. But all the years of doing those annoying scream/yelps he'd do in concert really took a toll on his voice. Now he does that annoying speak-sing thing that I absolutely hate.

Mariah's voice has deteriorated due to several factors including age, laziness, and that ridiculous whisper singing she did/does, which probably did the most damage to her voice.

But Mariah is a weird one to nail down because she'll do live performances one week where her vocals are completely shot and then the next one she does, there is still a shade of her former voice where you're like.. wait, it actually still there (and yes it's her actual live voice and not a pre-recording I'm talking about).

I think what it might be is that her voice isn't as gone as we think it is, but that she suffers from some sort of anxiety or stage fright. I've watched a few performances of hers where she does multiple songs and the first few are horrible which progress to shaky which turns in to passable/decent.

[quote] Mariah's voice has deteriorated due to several factors including age, laziness, and that ridiculous whisper singing she did/does

Being fat doesn't help

Plenty of fat people have been great singers.

True, it's just not helping Mariah.

I don't think Mariah's weight has any bearing on the matter. I expect, with her vocal nodes, her voice is extremely fragile and tires/breaks easily.

[quote]Being fat doesn't help

Say what?

[quote] I expect, with her vocal nodes, her voice is extremely fragile and tires/breaks easily.

I would guess that too but it doesn't make sense that if she's dong a medley or multiple songs, her voice is worse at the beginning and then gets better towards the end.

r75

I don't know at what stage this medley comes in her concert, but if it's long after her voice has warmed up, the "better" is likely lipped.

No, R76, you can tell in these instances that they're actually live vocals.

Is this real?

I believe so. I think she had multiple outfits as well.

" I've watched a few performances of hers where she does multiple songs and the first few are horrible which progress to shaky which turns in to passable/decent. "

That happens with singers whose voices are declining but not completely gone, I've seen it with theater or opera singers. They sound like shit until they get really warmed up, which can take half an hour or an hour, and then they sound good. By doing this, they're putting more strain on the voice and accelerating the decline. Anyone who takes half an hour or more to warm up needs to take a year or two off performing and first rest, and then work with a top vocal coach.

I posted earlier about Stevie Nicks' flat nasal voice being unchanged by time at the 2019 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony. She was followed by a classic case of a rock singer not knowing how to take care of their voice and completely losing it with time... Colin Bluntstone of the Zombies.

They really should have let the old fella lip-synch.

I agree with the Mariah thing. I always assumed she was lazy with her training and taking care of her voice. As pointed out above she often sounds awful at first and then sounds better towards the end. I assumed it was because she doesn't warm up properly, if at all. But thinking about the comment above, she does also seem really nervous on stage and I wonder if that plays any part in it.

Ditto, r32. Paul owns this thread.

People get old.

Period

[quote]Dionne Warwick sounds like she smoked too many cigarettes over the years.

Yeah, those were "cigarettes".

DL fave Lulu still has most of her voice.

r69, Mariah also drinks.

Steven Tyler has lost at least 2 octaves over the years.

Britney Spears never had a voice where she could be called a singer. Now she's worse.

r32, Why should he stop? People still pay him money to see him in concert and to buy his newer albums.

Madonna could never sing, why doesn't she stop? Same reason.

Stevie's voice on her 2014 version of "Cathouse Blues" dies not sound that much differently than her 1973 version.

From 1973 or 1974, 40 years before the 2014 version.

Talk about ignorant at R89.

Best way to keep your voice is to never use it.

Sure r93, that's why she literally lip syncs EVERY single performance she ever does and has for YEARS now.

And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, R95!

Stevie has always had an “interesting” voice, though not the most technically impressive. I like it in most of its different phases, but I find her voice prior to 1979 the most uninteresting.

I enjoy hearing a singer interpreting songs differently as the voice changes/ages. Billie Holiday was famously masterful at this.

R93 Ummmmm she sounds like shit. Another delusional Shitney loon.

R98 - Ignorant!!!

Britney had some fun pop songs, but I'm more of a song stylist than she is. I mean, really. Madonna has a pleasant voice that got better after she took voice lessons around the time of Evita. But she's never been known as a great singer.

r99 = DEAF

R101 = still hasn't gotten the joke.

Boy George. The background singers have to carry the notes out.

The only joke is Britney. "Got" her a long time ago.

[quote]Joni hates the vocals on her early albums - she felt she was still under the influence of people like Joan Baez and Judy Collins and hadn't discovered her own style yet. She put out a box set a few years ago and refused to include anything from her first 3 albums, which I thought was a bit silly.

Interesting. I love her early voice. It is birdlike and can be shrill, but it’s powerful, expressive, and elastic. And she does have some eccentric phrasing, so she wasn’t just parroting other singers.

Keep telling yourself that, Hunty!!!!

Stevie Nicks's voice is much deeper than it was at her prime. She used to singer in a higher register and is unable to anymore, probably a combination of aging, cigarettes, and copious cocaine use.

R103 True. And sad, because I really like him. But he already lost a lot of it a few years ago, and now it's almost down to zero.

Madonna’s voice has gotten progressively lower over the years. Most of her older songs she sings in concert now she sings a good 2 steps below the original key. It’s super noticeable in songs like express yourself.

I loved George's collab with Mark Ronson, "Somebody to Love Me". It should have done better but BG has been the singles chart equivalent of box office poision for 20 years or more.

Madonna was determined to sing in "pop keys" from the outset of her career. Nile Rodgers makes note of it in his biography. Her sweet spot was always the alto range but she never really learned to sing properly.

R110 Yeah, he's not inventive or exciting enough a musician now. His best work came from a very authentic emotional place with his love songs to Jon Moss. He's decided since that he's the new Bowie, and while his music is perfectly fine, it's not grabbing anyone.

Axl Rose's voice has lost some of its quality. Still performs. I think he compensates in other ways for loss of voice quality.

Johnny Cash sounded good up until his death. I'm not a country music fan but I always loved his voice.

[quote]Joni hates the vocals on her early albums - she felt she was still under the influence of people like Joan Baez and Judy Collins and hadn't discovered her own style yet.

That and she feels that she was singing too high. "I sound like I'm on helium" is how she put it in one interview. I definitely agree with her in regards to her first three albums as far as sounding like Joan Baez, et al. She doesn't quite sound like herself. It's better on Blue. For the Roses is where she really starts to find her lower register, and she hit her stride on the Court & Spark/Hissing of Summer Lawns/Hejira trio of albums. Her voice started getting deeper with Wild Things Run Fast in 1982. By the '90s, she had a wonderful, smoky lower register.

Generally, I find alto and contralto voices the most appealing.

No one wants to say it, but Aretha's voice was dreadful for the last few years of her life. That last album she did was ghastly, though I did enjoy the Adele cover. There wasn't much left. Just shrieking and rumbling. No nuance, and nothing to indicate how good she was in her prime.

R81 Stevie Nicks voice has most definitely changed. Listen to Dreams, Sara, Gold Dust Woman or even Bella Donna then Listen to Trouble in Shangri-La. Huge difference!

Yes, Stevie Nicks' voice is shot to hell. And I'm a fan.

I saw Boy George with the Culture Club a couple of years ago and it wasn’t that it was a bad show, he just really couldn’t carry it any more.

Plus the crowd was old and there were old women there dressed as Madonna. It was spine chilling

I think Mariah does have stage fright. I never thought of that as a reason to affect her vocals.

Mariah is just not comfortable on stage. I think she has gotten a bit better but you can tell she doesn't love it as much as recording.

R120 I think her stage fright is a catch-22. She has stage fright because she's concerned about how shitty her voice is going to sound... and then that stage fright contributes to her sounding shitty until she gets more comfortable. Well, that coupled with poor technique and she's probably too lazy to warm up.

I saw Jeff Lynne's ELO in concert, recently, and his voice doesn't seem to have changed much at all. A bit deeper and smokier, but he hit all the notes. I guess not touring regularly for over 30 years helps, too.

Mariah was only ever at home in the studio. Remember the "Honey" dance? It was worse than a high school talent show.

Carole King never sang. She squawked.

she's clearly another Milli Vanilli scandal gone under cover...

Barbra Streisand is mostly just rasp these days. Every now and then, she hits a big soaring note, so she still has something left.

Liza's voice is pretty much completely gone and yet she's still so captivating on stage that if she just sat there and read the lyrics, she'd get a standing ovation.

Patti LuPone's voice is in shockingly great shape. I'm not sure how she's done it.

Stacey Q. Poor thing lost her vocal range, too. All two notes. Poof!

[quote]Patti LuPone's voice is in shockingly great shape. I'm not sure how she's done it.

The big belters tend to keep most of their voice until the very end. LuPone, Bassey, Merman, Judy all had good voices as they aged. None of them had crystalline tones, so you didn't notice the loss of clarity as they got older.

It's the beautiful, bell-like voices that age the worst.

Yeah, Liza can get away with lack of voice because of her acting skills r126.

[quote]Springsteen seemed like he was losing his, around 15 years ago, but now he sounds great again. Maybe it can be reversed.

I think it can, based on an old bootleg of Neil Diamond I listened to a few years ago while co-writing a project with someone who sent it to me with a note saying "Yikes!" Diamond was only in his 50s but sounded like an 80yo feeb, even when telling a story and not singing. Sounded like Grandpa Simpson without hia dentures in.

When he started that comeback in the early 2000s he sounded much better, clearly having worked on his voice. But when Larry King asked him he said he'd never worked on it at all, of course.

Meat Loaf...

R121 et al, I think you're right, she does have stage fright, which sabotages her, but she also drinks heavily to calm her nerves and that certainly does not help. I remember hearing she started drinking in the morning the day of her disastrous NYE performance. It shows.

r127, who dat?

R32-Paul McCartney is painful to listen to now.

I think Mariah has really pulled herself together in the last year or so. She ditched that horrible manager she had and I've heard good reports about her current tour.

[quote]I think Mariah has really pulled herself together in the last year or so.

I love how she thinks the glow sticks applied to her dress make her look thinner.

Bowie could carry concerts until he got sick. Then he still did good recorded music. Grace Jones, bizarrely, manages OK even "live" with a limited instrument. She's about 200 years old you know. Jacques Dutronc could croak pleasantly into old age.

My God, she's getting the face she deserves.

Michael Jackson voice was perfect until the day he died.

[quote]Michael Jackson voice was perfect until the day he died.

It runs in the family!

Michael Jackson lip synced a lot.

R141 please see R140!

The DL is really losing it.

Which category is Belinda in? Just checking. Me, my ears are bleeding.

R144 Which one?

There are several of us.

Try & get your facts straight.

You're all more annoying than Belinda. And that's saying something!

I don't think that's possible. Wasn't her last album a collection of chants or something?

Tori Amos, headed toward "no longer can" far more rapidly than any fan would want to admit. Still a great voice, just nowhere near the raw power of years ago & kinda depressing now in comparison. Bummer.

I recently rediscovered Kate Bush's last albums and they are pretty. So she can still sing in the studio. In fact I prefer her old, tamer voice.

I dunno, I saw Belinda live a couple of years ago, and she was fine. She was never a great singer, so it wasn't like she had some big notes to get over.

Also saw Pat Benatar around the same time, and while she sounded "okay", she definitely couldn't handle a lot of the big notes, and she was quite raspy.

I take back what I said about Streisand. There's video from her recent London concert and she sounds better than she has in at least a decade. She's a lousy lipsyncer, so I don't think it's that.