THIS LIST WAS NO EASY THING TO MAKE; THERE HAVE BEEN COUNTLESS TALENTED WOMEN IN MUSIC WHO HAVE CHANGED THE GAME AS VOCALISTS.
Over the weekend, I asked my followers on Twitter to list their top 20 woman-identified vocalists, across genres, of all time. That tweet received well over 200 replies with names like Phyllis Hyman and Ella Fitzgerald, to Aretha Franklin and Whitney Houston, to… Ariana Grande and Adele (please do read those two names with the judgment with which I typed them)
I am a trained musician and singer who also grew up in the Black Church, which really just means that I have been surrounded by very talented vocalists and musicians my entire life. For this reason, music has remained a passion of mine and a topic that I am almost always willing to engage with. It is also for this reason that I can say many of the names people listed truly did not belong on the list.
So here is the criteria for my list, followed by my actual list. This list was no easy thing to make; there have been countless talented women in music who have changed the game with their vocals. For me, what qualifies one to be on a ‘greatest of all time’ list of vocalists is:
- Technique – control, timbre, phrasing and stamina, balance, support, posture, diction, etc.
- Vocal prowess – power, tone, style, technique.
- Conviction – emote, connect, sustain, perform.
- Longevity – the ability to make outstanding music with great vocals for a long period of time, which leads me to,
- Care – treating the voice as the instrument that it is that must be cared for.
All these considered, everyone on my list meets all or most of these requirements. And what they may lack in one area, they make up for ten times over in every other area.
THE GREATEST WOMEN VOCALISTS OF ALL TIME:
Ella Fitzgerald
Mahalia Jackson
Sarah Vaughan
Audra McDonald
Aretha Franklin
Whitney Houston
Mariah Carey
Yolanda Adams
Rachelle Ferrell
Barbara Streisand
Lalah Hathaway
Nina Simone
Beyoncé Knowles
Anita Baker
Brandy Norwood
Fantasia Barrino
Jazmine Sullivan
Jill Scott
Toni Braxton
Donna Summer
Honorable (and necessary!) mentions:
Phyllis Hyman
Jennifer Hudson
Da'Shaun Harrison
Da’Shaun Harrison is a Black trans theorist, storyteller, and community organizer in Atlanta, GA. Harrison has risen to national acclaim with the release of their debut title, Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness—published in August 2021. Belly of the Beast won the 2022 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction, and since then, Harrison has been the recipient of ProjectHEAL’s “Inspire Award” along with several other media and literary honors. Harrison lectures on Blackness, fatness, gender, and their intersections. Harrison currently serves as Editor-at-Large at Scalawag Magazine and is the co-host of the podcast “Unsolicited: Fatties Talk Back.” Between the years 2019 and 2021, Harrison served as Associate Editor — and later as Managing Editor — of Wear Your Voice Magazine.