5 most recognizable voices in American music?


While watching CNNs Larry King interview Johnny Cash a few days ago, I commented to my wife that Johnny Cash probably has one of the five most recognizable voices in American music today. My wife agreed and then asked "Well who are the other four?" After some discussion, we came up with our nominations (in no particular order):

Johnny Cash
Elvis Presley
Ray Charles
Barbra Streisand
Louie Armstrong

This question probably assumes that the singer is quite famous and that their music has been around quite awhile-- or they became really famous really fast. We'd be interested in knowing what other A'Gon members think about these five, or others you would nominate instead for this "top five"? Thanks. Craig
garfish

Showing 4 responses by sevs

The last time I checked the responces, they all come from the US 'goners. Would be interesting to see what the outsiders (like myself) think. Going back 30 years, living in Ukraine, I would have named Ella, Louie, Elvis, Jim Morrison, David Bowie. 
My point is (but this would be another thread): can any 'goner name someone "recognizable" in French or Russian (Brits, thats too easy!) rock/pop? 
@bdp24 I could not have said better! Exactly my point (re. this thread for >90% of the folks out there)
@dweller Thank you for getting my point, I did not mean any disrespect to the posts @ this thread, was rather thinking about those over 2 billion Chinese, Indian, and Russian-speaking dudes perspective on the subject. (Well, and French of course) What do They think??!? Do they even care? I did not (do not) care if Bowie is American or Brit, whether he is a man or a woman, or gay, or lesbian... I just loved him (Michael Jackson not so much) when residing on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall. Personally, I do not have any Chinese/Oriental tunes in my x1000+ library (unless you count Debussy and George Harrison) and totally hate Russian pop!! As a test, search for YouTube videos of the album "Po Freidu" by Max Barskih. Cool videos, but my-guess u will get my point of the outsiders-"natives" listening to American rock/pop. Once again, with all due respect etc etc this is the only tune (plus Riverside of course) coming from "beyond" that I can listen to and I still feel sorry that did not buy his CD when it was available on Amazon...
Now, a tip for those who dig Lustmord, Reich, Brian Eno: "Cows don’t dream at night" by Electric Orange! The best 60+min drone tune I have in my collection,... the only bummer is that I still understand Russian and cannot help listening to the background "news" he used as a "human touch" to electronic droning... Let me know if I am wrong!!!

@dweller Thanks for the tip!! Downloaded Silver Apples onto my Pono, some real crazy stuff! If it was a CD I would have put it next to my Japanese mini-LP boxes of Cluster/Roedelius CDs. Not "droning" by my definition but definitely (like Cluster craziness and Deepchord and Klaus Schulze drones) the kind of music I tend to listen to thru the headphones so that my family won't sign me into the loonies bin! ;-)
once again, thanks for the tip, I did not know that some Americans are as loony as Germans! Until now the Talking Heads/David Byrne were the craziest US tunes in my collection.