The other day I asked a new blog subscriber what type of mixed CD she’d like me to make for her (as a token of my appreciation for her signing up) and she let me know that in lieu of a CD, she would really like some recommendations on “beautiful male vocals”. Currently she is enjoying listening to Breathe Owl Breathe, One Eskimo, Alexi Murdoch, Joshua Radin, Josh Rouse and Kings of Convenience. I have music by One Eskimo and Josh Rouse and I’ve heard Alexi Murdoch’s music on the WMVY, but am not yet familiar with the others. I’m very excited to explore some new music and have already added them to my “Music I Might Buy” list in eMusic.
I thought take this opportunity to write about some of the male vocalists that I’ve been listening to recently. The first is Andrew Belle. I discovered him back in June on eMusic and I absolutely love his album. It is the first time in quite awhile that an artist has grabbed me in a way that I long to listen to their album over and over again. He sings one of the songs with Katie Herzig, who I mentioned in a post back in June. Together they are magic. Below are two songs from his album called The Ladder. Try not to get to distracted by the videos (especially the second one) and just listen to the music. Unfortunately, there is no way for me to post audio files, so this is the only way to get the music to you.
The first song is the title track called The Ladder:
The second song, with Katie Herzig, is called Static Waves:
Another male artist that I think has a beautiful sound is Josh Ritter. A friend of mine turned me onto him when she posted his video for The Curse on Facebook. A haunting song and skillfully produced video. Impressive to say the least. Check it out here:
My parting thought is to direct you to a playlist that I put up on 8tracks back in March. It includes 14 tracks by some pretty fabulous fellas. I’m sure there were many others I could have included, but this is what was moving me at the time.
The tracks are as follows:
1. Black River Killer – Blitzen Trapper
2. Incomplete & Insecure – The Avett Brothers
3. On Judgement Day – The Beautiful Girls
4. On Up The Mountain – Jakob Dylan
5. Librarian – My Morning Jacket
6. How Come – Ray LaMontagne
7. What’cha Know About – Donavan Frankenreiter
8. Wild Wood – Paul Weller
9. 40 Day Dream – Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes
10. Holiday – Fran Healy
11. Tell Her What I Said – The Sadies
12. In The Middle – Joshua James
13. Romulus – Sufjan Stevens
14. Harvest – Neil Young
Click on the link below to take a listen. By the way…the photo on 8tracks for this playlist is a picture of Jakob Dylan (taken by my dad) playing at the Newport Folk Festival in 2008. He was fantastic!
http://8tracks.com/mixes/259426/player_v3
If you’d like to have a CD with this playlist, subscribe to my blog. If you’re already subscribed, encourage a friend to subscribe.
Oh and I’d love to hear about some of the fellas that you are enjoying listening to. As you know, I am always looking for new music.
My Musical Muses 
have you heard harder to breathe performed by casey abrams? you can see it on you tube………… It has been described as haunting and one of the best performances of his young career by spin magazine (or maybe not spin but tiger beat at least)
thanks so much for this melissa! some other fab fellas you might want to listen to are jose gonzalez and devendra banhart. jose has a melodic sweet sleepy voice, and devendra is much more complex, animated and interesting. i love them both.
thanks lisa. i’ll be sure to check them out.