Your Take: Taking the Lead

I generally prefer to hear members trade off lead vocals, whether its a duo or a group. However, I still enjoy listening to Brooks & Dunn and Sugarland even though both are helmed by a single lead singer.

But when only one member of a duo sings, I usually don’t start arguing that they are not a duo. But if only one duo member sings, I think the other member should have an important and clearly defined role as well.

I like the trade off of vocals

Two of the three most successful groups in the history of the genre, The Statler Brothers and the Oak Ridge Boys (Alabama was the other) traded off leads with great frequency. Although Don Reid and Lew Dewitt (later Jimmy Fortune) were ostensibly the lead singers, frequently each member took a verse, especially on the nostalgic songs.

I always thought that Lew Dewitt was the greatest high tenor singer any group ever had, and most of my favorite Statler recordings date to his era. Jimmy Fortune was indeed excellent,one of the great high tenors, but you can be excellent and still not approach Lew Dewitt

Shenadoah had Marty Raybon, probably the greatest lead singer any group ever had, but the drop off between Marty’s vocals and those of anyone else in the group was severe so Marty of necessity took the leads. Alabama had three excellent vocalists but RCA seemingly wanted to focus on a single vocalist, Randy Owen, to the detriment of the group’s internal harmony harmony

I enjoy LBT for what it is..a quartet of wonderful singers and a fire-y match of rhythm that’s quite nice to hear and unmatched at this point on radioland. However, having a group/band title of one vocalist (Alabama) makes it a bit off-point as the title and showcase they present. The only solution I can see on this front is to have other members showcase other talents along the way: instrumental breaks and leads and/or harmonizing a line or two to accentuate their rightful place as teamwork.
This has already been argued by John Rich who said during his reign of the countrified American Idol that in order for a duo/group to be successful, they must have a lead singer to be identified by in order to be recognized in comfort. His example is purely himself when he was with Lonestar as the other vocal sharing with Mcdonald. When both of them were up there singing, they couldn’t take off as well as when JR left and the group became dominant. I hate to say it, but maybe JR is right in this discourse…personally, I’d like a change up from time to time…who wants to hear a great hit over and over again without some new re-vamping?

I like the trade off of vocals

Two of the three most successful groups in the history of the genre, The Statler Brothers and the Oak Ridge Boys (Alabama was the other) traded off leads with great frequency.

I agree. And even though the Statlers and the Oaks took turns singing the lead, the listener always knew whose record was being played on the radio.

For years I hated most groups and duo’s because they never switched off vocals! Then Little Big Town came along and blew me away. I love that they switch it up and unlike others above I love the harmony!!! That is the two things that make them diffrent!!! There is practically no harmony on the radio now days other than LBT and they are filling a void for us folks who like that!!!! Switching up the vocals makes the harmony even better because you get a stong lead vocalist, yet you can hear the other members voice’s as clear as day too!!! Unlike other bands who tried this before, you can easily hear each individual voice. This is not Shedaisy or Rascal flats where IMO the harmony sounds like it could be from any Tom, Dick or Harry off the street(if you call it harmony). It works for them and I hope for many more hits to come!

A group blessed with multiple strong vocalists has the chance to take advantage of that rare situation–and really ought to. But that could mean varying leads, varying ways the harmony works behind a lead and, yep, even outright trios and such. The loss would be if they don’t vary the approach, however winning one of the above might be–when they’re capable of it. Those voices in Little Big Town were an immediate, notable attraction. Who knows what they may do over time..

I would like each member to trade off as lead. Especially as each one of the members of Little Big Town could have had a solo career. To me, it makes it more interesting and makes us love the group as a whole.

Inspired by John’s post, but more directed at John Rich (as if he’s reading this blog — we all know he spends all his time at Farce the Music) — who was the lead singer of Big & Rich??

See, the problem was, they had some really good songs — “Never Mind Me”, “You Never Stop Loving Somebody”, “Live This Life”, “Wild West Show”, “I Pray For You” (not the JatLRtL song). But they had no defined lead singer, and it was a little bit hypocritical for him to tell another duo that they needed a lead singer (I remember this being a point of discussion when it first happened, too). That’s all I mean by that.

I definitely think that duos should have both members sing lead while bands should have one lead vocalist. I love Montgomery Gentry because of the fact that both members sing lead at various times. I think that duos like B&D and Sugarland aren’t really duos. I know Kix Brooks and Kristian Bush both play guitar and write songs but I just don’t really view them as true duos. As far as bands are concerned I think that ZBB have the correct formula. I know that Zac doesn’t sing lead on “It’s Not Ok” but that is my least favorite song on the album.

I think chosing whether to showcase one vocalist or use multiple voices is a part of the appeal of a duo or band, and it helps establish that artists sound and appeal within their audience.

If a band choses to use one vocalist or multiple, they should decide that from the begining, and only stray from that if they are in the confines of hardcore fans who buy their albums or have heard them switch the sound up before.

How would people react if Sugarland or Rascal Flatts decided to use the harmony-style of Little Big Town, or Little Big Town chose one lead vocalist and started sounding like them? Chances are, it wouldn’t work because the artists stand a chance of losing what made them popular and indentifiable from the begining.

Although I perfer bands with one vocalist, I don’t mind if a band switches between two voices and stays away from the heavy chior-sounding harmony where the voices aren’t seperated from the harmony.

Little Big Town does wonders with their trading of vocal prominence, so I hope they continue with that, because I quite enjoy it, and easily prefer them to any of today’s current country groups.

My opinion, let artists make and play the music they want to make they want and if people like it, they will come. Duo? Group? It’s all semantics. I for one, love Little Big Town. And I also love Sugarland.