Best Male Singers of the 20th Century

Its Ray Charles, of course!
The single most influential singer of all time.
A great blues singer who kick-started Rock'n'Roll went on to invent Soul and is the inspiration behind ALL of the sixties british bands like the Stones,Beatles,Kinks and the Animals who, in turn, influenced countless american bands. Modern music would be unrecognizable without Ray.
Objectively, he'll be hard to beat.

If it is for singing alone we give this honor then I would vote for Elvis. The Man had an incredible voice which he could and did apply to a number of different genres of music, and with which he did broaden the view of what great singing could be- what vocal styles could be acceptable. That is a lot to do in one century! Still, my favorite bests are the likes of Woody Gutherie and Bob dylan. Captains of the best worst male singers of the twentieth Century catagory to show up here, er, eventually.

Nusrat is amazing .. but a little nasal.. One of the best male singers i can think of (and largely forgotten) is Tim Buckley -- 5 and a half octave range, totally incredible! Listen to his album 'starsailor' (1970) to see what i mean.. tracks like 'monterey' make your blood run cold - Buckley could go up, down and in 6 other directions at once! robert plant doesn't come close!

personally same thing guides me as i posted my favorite guitarists on another thread...uniquness and style not technical proficiency...who had brought a new voicing, an new style, differnt phrasing etc? who has soul?

in no particular order, the ones who come to mind are
frank sinatra, robert plant, smokey robinson, james brown, john lennon, louis armstrong, muddy waters, marvin gaye, ray charles, ...

many of the sighted in this thread (certainly not all! and just because I have not included my list doesn't mean so...just for sake of a degree of brevity)...I find more iterations of the true pioneers, individualists. for example, i really like what's his name from Incubus: but would I put him as one of the great ones: no, he is really good, but is not someone who has really brought something unique. someone who may be getting there among current artists, I think is seal

Frank Sinatra........hands down, IMO.