Best female vocal recording on CD?


i am a sucker for great warm rich smooth female vocalists, especially on tube gear and speakers that image well. but i am almost always faced with a great voice/song but a sonically inferior recording (examples too numerous to list) or a great recording of a mediocre voice.  rickie lee jones (pop pop) comes to mind- fab recording, but come on lets be honest about her voice. however, i will almost always pick great recordings and leave the bad recordings for the car.

 so i am asking for what you use as a reference female vocal recording/track. right now i come back tp bonnie raitt "you cant make me love you" from luck of the draw.  big, warm, strong voice. not a perfect recording. but hmmmm that voice.

my only requirement is it has to be on CD. and we all know of great vinyl that did not translate into great CDs.  so help me out here, what should be my next music purchase 
meiatflask
I’m a huge Rickie Lee Jones fan and know every inch of that record... so I was pleasantly surprised when I read your post! I was even at the live show supporting that album; so I think I may know where you’re coming from... I own and have listened to 95% of all the standards mentioned in this thread... Norah, Patricia B, Holly Cole, etc... many excellent choices... and yes, I have a hi-fi system worth two or three brand new SUVs I could have parked in the driveway instead.

Given this; My favorite all time female vocal track for CD (non-high res) is:
*Barbra Steisand’s Send In The Clowns (track 8) ’Broadway Album’ ... it’s an older recording, but just an astonishing track - both musically, vocally, emotionally and sonically. I even own the vinyl (for the day I go that route!)

Important to know; My system is is based on hi res SACD, Pure Blu-Ray Audio and DVD-A spec. The next track is going to surprise a lot of people:
*Dolly Parton’s In The Sweet By And By from her ’Little Sparrow’ SACD release (Track 13).The entire album sonically is a masterpiece... conceived, recorded, mixed and mastered from the studio mics to your D/A ENTIRELY in DSD. Few pop albums can claim this. It’s not remastered from low or even hi res digital masters or analog tapes; rather, it is the purest of the pure - like Chesky SACDs/DVD-As releases. IMHO this is an example of how good hi-fi content gets. I’m a musician and recording engineer. I have very little consumer gear in my hi fi setup. The heart is a 6-ch Emm Labs mastering DAC, dedicated DSD transport and 6-ch transparent pre. I challenge anyone to find a finer recording than this on VINYL or otherwise. I have heard 100’s and 100’s of great hi-fi albums on vinyl that simply can’t touch this recording... same with other hi res discs (I have a sizable collection). Although sweet sounding, the physical properties of vinyl are severely limiting. Ie: (S/N and dynamic range). Add to this the required encode-decode RIAA eq curve in your preamp to compensate for all this and it just won’t allow vinyl to do what this hi-res recording does... STUNNING 5.1 clarity and an emotional performance that will blow you away. I have played this as my reference recording for almost a decade. I have left friends and dozens of crazed vinyl-heads audiophiles speechless; jaws on the floor.  If you don’t have an SACD (spec) setup w a good DAC this recording alone would be the enough reason to make the plunge.

Honorable mentions:
CD:
Eva Cassidy, Fields of Gold
Sarah McLachlan, Angel, (if you have a player with the HDCD chip, get the ’Angel’ album soundtrack version vs the standard ’Surfacing’ album CD version).

SACD:
*Sarah McLachlan, Answer, album ’Afterglow’ (a relatively new release!)
*Alison Krauss, Ghost In This House, album ’Forget About It’
*Rickie Lee Jones, Stewart’s Coat, album Traffic In Paradise

Enjoy your journey!

ps.. there is track 'Little Sparrow REPRISE' after the Dolly track 13 I mentioned feom
the same same album that demonstrates how good dobro and guitars can get on a hi fi system, so let the disc run and get treated to a reference STRING track as well! Note: these are recordings you can really crank up, so highly suggested, do it and you'll be amazed. 
Lavay  Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers if you want some jumpin jive.
Mari Muldaur A Woman Alone with the blues and Meet Me where they Play the Blues
And
Esperanza Spaulding.    Esperanza

Can't add a lot to a great list of vocalists here, but a minor suggestion, Jane Monheit has a lot of pedestrian stuff out there, but she seemed to find her strength in the "Surrender" album. 
Gardot, Barber, Peyroux, etc. are all great ... might also look at Nancy Moore for interesting interpretations.