Voices and faces

I mustn't keep my sister waiting to hear what on earth I've got to say about Bryan Adams, not the sort of person she expected to see me mention in my blog. I only intended to mention him in passing actually because I saw a photo of his face (taken by Yousuf Karsh) in an exhibition at our National Library and Archives as I was on my way to make myself acquainted with another kind of singer, Georg Ots. Both Adams and Ots had handsome faces, but it's the voices that people swoon over. Ots, recordings of whose voice were used in the musical parts of the film Georg sounded to me like Dmitri Hvorostowski, singing the sort of music that Richard Tauber used to sing, only in a lower register. Yes indeed, very different from Bryan Adams.

It struck me as interesting that Adams as a young man had one of the faces that appealed to Karsh along with such luminaries as Pablo Casals, Lawrence Olivier, Jessye Norman and Jean Sibelius! Because he (Adams) was (still is?) an object of adoration for Canadians, perhaps.

Another Canadian icon that may not be so well known outside Canada is k.d. lang. Chris and I were at a house warming party the other week where the host rounded off the evening by improvising on his new electronic piano, and the music he chose to play was Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah", most famously (so I gather) sung by the barefoot Ms Lang. Vija, a professional musician friend of mine, also present at the party, told us that this woman "has the best voice in Canada!"

I googled her when I got home, and although I don't exactly feel at home with Country and Western music I must admit k.d. lang has quality and what looks like integrity. I also took a closer look at the lyrics. I found them rather foreign to me, too, am obviously not 100% Canadian yet.