The greatest singer of all time, according to Paul Weller: “He raised the bar for me”
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(Credits: Far Out / Press)
Great voices aren’t anything, in the world of music. Sure they might help take a good song into technical new heights, but music that truly impacts audiences doesn’t exclusively have to be delivered by a singer with flawless ability.
Neil Young, Tom Waits and Bob Dylan are all proponents of this idea. As Simon Cowell recently said, “When I heard Bob Dylan’s version of that Adele song, ‘Make You Feel My Love’, I didn’t know he wrote the song. I think if he’d walked in and sang that version, I’m not gonna lie, I would’ve gone, ‘Forget it’. Seriously.”
The emotive power of their voice didn’t come from their range but instead the nuances of feeling that existed within each line. The way in which they moulded the words to suit their voice and in turn, their experiences ultimately made the music more profound that anything that has been painfully polished.
That being said, there are some icons of years gone by who have managed to hit similar emotive depths, while showcasing the sort of technical talent that Simon Cowell would have approved of during the pomp of his talent show domination.
One such musician was, of course, Marvin Gaye. His voice across all of his work was near flawless, yet he never took it for granted. Admittedly, his career started out in the relative naivety of Motown, where in either duet or solo form he would sing aspirational songs of love and lust. But as he matured and became more in tune with his sense of artistic self, he began to release records that spoke to a wider social consciousness, akin to the work of Young, Waits and Dylan, but this time with a voice to truly make an impact.
It didn’t get more impactful than on his 1971 album What’s Going On. Under the umbrella of a concept album, joined together by coherent musical ideas that were largely built around the bass parts of James Jameson, Gaye let rip on 1970s America. Addressing everything from police brutality, the Vietnam War and poverty, the soul icon created an album that foregrounded societal impact, while maintaining a very clear sense of musicality.
It was a record that instantly changed music, inspiring both social change and a new wave of musicians who were left in awe of Gaye’s voice. And one such artist was Paul Weller.
“What’s Going On is a symphonic concept album and Marvin Gaye the greatest singer of all time,” Weller told The Guardian in 2008. “His range and control over his voice is amazing. He raised the bar for me when I wanted to stretch out musically. Records this good take years to be properly appreciated.”
That was the genius of Gaye and in particular, What’s Going On. It was a record deeply designed for his own American communities, but its reach was all-encompassing nevertheless. Through the sheer brilliance of his voice, he enabled the words of the record to go global and inspire the modern works of artists like Weller, and bands like The Jam.
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