by Russell Popham

Created on: January 30, 2007   Last Updated: December 06, 2007

In most cases GREAT singers are born with a natural gift (as are thousands every year) and then they manage to rise to the top, into the ranks of the truly great, through hard work, tenacity and an unfailing belief in themselves and their gift. And when I speak of great singers I am talking about the quality of their voice, their instrument, not quality of the songs they sing/compose, the words/emotions etc.

Let me take a moment to clarify this by defining the word "great" in this context by telling you what a great singer is not - the list of "great" singers, past and present does not include (as of this writing) any of the winners from American Idol (PUHLEEESE!). Sure there've been several decent singers on that show and maybe one or two might some day be considered great (doubtful but I'll leave some room for hope ;?D). But by any real standards of greatness, your average pop star, those flash in the pan here today gone the next types, can not be considered here. Greatness by it's own definition I believe includes some longevity and should only be discounted if the singer in question drops dead at a relatively early age.

Of course there have been many greats who have achieved greatness through sheer determination, force of will, etc. but even then those few individuals are usually considered to have some gift, a unique "something" that makes them stand out from the crowd. Frank Sinatra comes to mind - from a pure technical stand point his voice, his "instrument", probably wouldn't be thought of as necessarily great, yet he did possess a style/talent so unique as to place him far above the rest. He simply had that Star Quality! But even with that Star Quality I still believe Frank had to have been born with a voice meant to croon or he would never have achieved the level of fame that he did.

This brings up my final case in point and that is that if singing did not require a special "god-given" talent, then why is it that most movie stars who have ever attempted to become singers have failed utterly and miserably at it? Hmmm, it can't be because they didn't have the determination or didn't put in the hard work. After all those are commonly the attributes which made them famous in the first place, and many cases are on record (or not, lol) where such celebs have indeed thrown themselves into their "new careers" wholly, exerting every effort and sparing no expense to succeed, only to achieve mediocrity! It is a rare bird indeed who can move from being a great actor to being even a good singer.

The opposite is not true and there are many cases where singers have become successful actors with relative ease. I think this proves that, as a generalization anyway, one needs to be born with a gift in order to achieve greatness as a singer.

Learn more about this author, Russell Popham.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.