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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
czarivey
5,946 posts
 
There are plenty of 'audiophile oriented' boring artists:
Diana Krall
Patricia Barber
Norah Jones,

But there others you might not know with excellent recording and performing qualities:

LHasa De Sela
Melody Gardot
Don't pass on 4AD titles such as This Mortal Coil and Cockteau Twins
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
10,277 posts
 

Old favorites of mine are Maryann Price and Naomi Ruth Eisenberg, the two singers of Dan Hicks And His Hot Licks in the 1970’s. They’re great on the studio-recorded Striking It Rich and the recorded-live-at-The Troubadour Where’s The Money? As a bonus, both are unusually good sounding recordings.

And then there are all the Iris Dement albums. I would love them no matter the sound quality, but fortunately they’re pretty good. I used her My Life album as a demo source at CES in the late 90’s.

winoguy17
1,230 posts
 
Hope Waits.  You're welcome.
tls49's avatar
tls49
1,351 posts
 

Another vote for Holly Cole. Have a few of her albums, favorite is, "Temptation". All tracks are covers of Tom Waits songs.

tubegroover
2,320 posts
 
Beg to differ with you Czarivey, I don't consider Patricia a boring audiophile artist. She has some quite formidable jazz arrangements that put her into the class of unique IMHO. She's pretty good, try her live in France album and enjoy, if this is possible :), I used to feel the same but she has really grown on me the more I listen.
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