replacing Hardly Baked whose feed is broken for reasons unknown. Original Hardly Baked + archive are here http://hardlybaked.blogspot.com/
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^"Really awful is more interesting to listen to than pretty good" - Eno
Not the origin of the vocal style but of me identifying it as such
Well not quite - in this June 27 1987 Singles column, in which "White Rabbit" turned up unexpectedly as a reissued single, Lord alone knows why (some kind of movie tie-in?) I don't use the term "that voice". But I do hurl out the metaphor of the stridently searing female voice as a lance or javelin for the very first time. (But not the last time, no indeed).
And there is the first inkling of a lineage, with the reference to the Ice Queen Siouxsie and the marrow-curdling intensity of Kristin Hersh
The Singles column had a whole thematic to do with "Ice", part of a running thing to with anti-humanism, inclement and inhospitable environments, "let us be angels or monsters, not paltry and lowly beings of the flesh".
I picked up the theme in an end-of-year overview minipiece on the voix mystere, sketching out the start of a canon
The past month has seen the unexpected return to activity of Dorothy Moskowitz, as in The United States of America, with a new album titled Under the Endless Sky and credited to Dorothy Moskowitz and The United States of Alchemy.
Moskowitz is one of the original perpetrators of "That Voice", a topic that some of the more elderly readers of this blog cluster may remember gettingchewedover collectively before.
A quick recap: That Voice is a style of pure-toned and piercing female singing that dates to the late 1960s; a mode that owes almost nothing to blues or soul, does owe something to folk, but perhaps owes more to show tunes. That Voice is belting, but the belt is psychedelicized. Often there's a witchy aura. Think Grace Slick, above all in "White Rabbit" and "Somebody To Love"; think the unseen singer Lynn Carey on the Beyond the Valley of the Dolls soundtrack; think Mariska Veeres of Shocking Blue for at least the duration of "Love Buzz"; think (less witchy than ethereal) Michal Shapiro of Elephant's Memory for at least the duration of "Old Man Willow". Not forgetting Edna Bejarano of The Rattles, who actually had a hit with a song called "The Witch". Latterday exponents would include poor dear Trish Keenan of Broadcast. And possibly Jane Weaver.
Moskowitz's definitive That Voice showcase is "The Garden of Earthly Delights" off the one-and-only United States of America album. For that tune alone I am rather intrigued to hear the new record.
However what I am really here for today is someone I never got to round to dealing with properly in the previous bloggeration about That Voice.
Judy Henske!
The baleful black bob! The mouth belting at full blast!
She is most renowned of course for 1969's Farewell Aldebaran, her collaboration with Jerry Yester.
Henske's singing has that pure-toned, cuts-right-through-you-like-a-lance quality.
Crime writer Andrew Vachss was a fan and in one of his books wrote: "If Linda Ronstadt's a torch singer, Henske's a flame thrower."
But to my mind, the effect is less fiery and more ice queeny - steely and imperious.
This one, "Rapture", is almost proto-Siouxsie, with a touch of flange or phase on the vocal adding to the astringent stridency.
Lyrics to the album written by Henske in a state of high fever, apparently - hence the torrid, imagistic quality.
"Three Ravens" got a lot of play on John Peel's Top Gear, it is said.
The title track and album closer is full-blown synthedelia, with Moog (Paul Beaver is among the cast involved)and there's electronic processing of the voice, although this song actually has Yester singing the lead vocal, I believe.
Thing is, all well and good in theory (and I've friends who are total Aldebaran cultists). But in truth that tune is pretty unpleasant to listen to. Grating and overbearing. A tinfoil-on-the-teeth effect on the old cochlea.
"Rapture" aside, I'm not digging much of the album.
Then there's her earlier solo career.
That one is sort of Janis Joplin meets Ethel Merman
Whereas the above sort of combines the give-me-fever dramatics of a Peggy Lee with Cher's deep-voiced, oddly wooden quality (meaning not so much inflexible and inexpressive but that it sounds like the voice is literally made out of wood).
Love That Look, not so keen on That Voice, or at least This Iteration of That Voice
Back to Dorothy Moskowitz ... I've been listening to the long opening title track of this new, wholly unexpected album while assembling this post.... and it's really rather good, has a sort of higgledy-piggledy, motley sprawl to the sound reminiscent of Let's Eat Grandma's first album... But Time has taken its toll on That Voice, and one thing about That Voice is that there is no rasp to it.
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Tying the discussion back to another witchy singer recently discussed here...
