Best female vocals on CD

I do not know if she has already been mentioned but I recall listening to Laura Nyro in the early 70's and finding her vocals to be quite moving. I have not searched for her on CD but will do so soon. My wife picked up a CD by Vonda Shepard who sings in the bar on the "Ally McBeal" television show. I am not familiar with the show but enjoy her singing and find that she reminds me of Carol King on some of the cuts. Also interesting is Marlene Dietrich - "Live at the Cafe de Paris". It takes a few songs to get past the recording quality (Sony) but eventualy draws your complete attention. This is a little off the track but last night I listened to Gram Parsons "GP/Grevious Angel" a compilation of 20 songs dating as far back as 1973 and featuring Emmylou Harris on backup vocals and it was super, Gram as well as Emmylou. I heard Diana Krall for the first time on the television last week and liked it though I would prefer to just listen and not see her perform. Just ordered one of her CD's from BMG. This is a helpful thread for those of us not in the know and has given me a nice list of things to pick up. Thanks.

Trisha Yearwood is on the soundtrack CD to "Stuart Little" the mouse movie. Very nice disco-ish vocals, and assume that she has other albums/CD's. I had mentioned the late great Laura Nyro earlier in this thread and a few days later stumbled upon "The Best Of Laura Nyro", a double CD. Unfortunatley her voice does not ring true on this compilation by Sony/Columbia due to poor sound engineering (way beyond the CD vs vinyl debate, just a plain crappy over compressed/limited and tasteless job). Except for three live cuts that the engineer(s) did not botch, it does not bring back the fond memories of listening to the vinyl versions. Picked up Holly Cole "Temptation" and could not get into it at all. Though she's interesting in a kind of "Beat me up, take me home and call me Peggy" way. Not to everyone's taste. On a more positive note Linda Thompson of Richard and Linda has a great voice and so did (young) Nico of Lou Reed fame. Claudine Longet is a nice piece of vocal fluff, just don't play her around the Olympic Ski Team.

Duh! Just found out from my adopted daughter/neighbor that Trisha Yearwood is country/pop. One of her favorites and she is a profesional vocalist.

Nice Tubegroover! I didn't think that anyone was interested in non-groovy performers, no offense Mary - you are a legend. I would like to add Patti LuPone from the new Broadway cast recording of "Anything Goes", RCA 1988. And also, Nancy Walker and Betty Comden from "On The Town" the original cast, Columbia.

We listened to Charlotte Church "Voice of an Angel" this evening. She is thirteen years and has an incredible voice.

So are you Sluggo.

Tubegroover - I really have to give my wife credit for most of the suggestions that I have posted in this thread. I know that this is why I snapped at Sluggo who I know nothing of other than his Boooooring post. I grew up in Des Moines listening mostly to "loud" popular music of the 60's and 70's and some instrumental jazz and big band stuff that my father had. I became overloaded with music in general after attempting to make a living writing and performing it when I moved to LA in the late 70's and literaly did not listen to music from 1985 to 2000. I had an extreme love for music and at the same time an extreme lack of talent which made for an extreme amount of frustration. Now I discover that I appreciate all types of music and musicians as long as their is an underlying talent that involves me in the music. I try to go to the local highschool fleamarket every Sunday and yesterday picked up two Cowboy Junkies CD's and the second Cranberries CD that were suggested in this thread. They are good bands producing sincere music. We do not listen to the radio or "borrow" with Napster so I would again like to take this opportunity to thank the people that have contributed to this thread. I showed my list to the vendor at the fleamarket who seems to have listened to "every album ever recorded" and he was very impressed with it.

Here's a new one that I just picked up. Dolora Zaijick "The Art of the Dramatic Mezzo-Soprano. On the Telarc label. She is a classical singer with an outstanding voice. Still really don't know who she is, but she sure can sing.