Who are your favourite female singers?

[Mike's Beard]

In no particular order mine would be Karen Carpenter, Judy Collins, Tori Amos, Mama Cass and Emmylou Harris.

[stack-o-tracks]

Courtney Love 

[MBE]

Ronnie Spector
Darlene Love
Sharon Marie
Marilyn Wilson
Ginger Blake
Diane Rovell
Diana Ross
Aretha Franklin
Tina Turner (in her Ike days)
Marianne Faithfull (in the sixties and early seventies before she lost her voice)
Thelma Camacho
Mary Arnold

[Paulos]

Joni Mitchell, Janis Joplin, Aretha Franklin, Etta James, Billie Holiday, Mahalia Jackson, Joanna Newsom.

[Loaf]

Joni, Laura Nyro, Joanna Newsom, PJ Harvey, good call on Mama Cass, Grace Slick, Patti Smith, early Sheryl Crow up to '99.

[hypehat]

Lorraine Ellison, Judee Sill, and Joanna Newsom would be my favouries. Oh, and Mavis Staples.

[rab2591]

Mette Lindberg of the Asteroids Galaxy Tour.
Joan Baez.
Astrud Gilberto.

[Mikie]

Carly Simon
Karen Carpenter
Grace Slick
Ella Fitzgerald
Billie Holiday
Joni Mitchell
Barbra Streisand
Sarah Vaughn
Natalie Cole
Mariah Carey
Whitney Houston
Aretha Holly
Connie Lingus

[TdHabib]

Great topic

Favorite Female Singers:
For the "standards" set: Judy Garland, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday; Bette Midler and Barbra Streisand I like but don't love
I adore Dionne Warwick's voice, especially on Bacharach tunes
Dusty Springfield of course
Joni Mitchell
Laura Nyro
Carol King
Ronnie Spector
Carnie has a great set of pipes, always like Marilyn and Wendy but Wendy isn't a terribly special singer to me.
Christine McVie
Stevie Nicks
I liked Karen Carpenter's voice quite a bit, the material was 50/50 or so
Mama Cass Elliott
Darlene Love
Linda Ronstsdt
Nicolette Larson (mostly when she worked with Neil Young's stuff)
Evie Sands
Nico
Carly Simon
Always liked Alanis Morissette, although I know many do not
Bonnie Tyler on the Steinman stuff was good

As far as new voices I LOVE Victoria Legrand, sorta like Alicia Keys and Joanna Newsom and even say Norah Jones or Regina Spektor have good voices.

[Alex]

Leslie Feist, Neko Case, Chrissy Hynde, Inara George, Ginger Blake, Rachel (of Revolvers fame), Darlene Love, Mary Weiss, Petra Haden, Jenny Lewis, Poly Styrene, Debbie Harry, Bilinda Butcher, Nina Persson...

[?]

Jex Thoth.

[Myk Luhv]

I really love Hazel Dickens' (RIP ) voice a lot. If you're into bluegrass (or labour songs) at all -- and feminist bluegrass/labour songs at that! -- you owe it to yourself to check her (solo and with Alice Gerrard) out. Hazel & Alice, released in 1973 on Rounder, is a monstrously good and extremely influential/historic album!

[Peter Reum]

Mavis Staples

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

Dusty Springfield
Kate Bush
Nico
Evie Sands
Aretha
Chan Marshall
Cheri Currie
Joan Jett
Peggy Lee
Tammy Wynette
Emmylou Harris

[TdHabib]

I'm very dissapointed to see I didn't include Neko Case: Middle Cyclone was one of my top 5 albums of 2009.

[donald]

Not necessarily in any order;

Darlene Love
Dusty Springfield
Ronnie Spector
Taylor Mills
Melba Montgomery
Ella Fitzgerald
Billie Holiday
Christine McVie
Carla Thomas
Emmylou Harris
Phoebe Snow
Martha Reeves
Joni Mitchell
Merry Clayton
Clare Torry
Grace Slick

[pixletwin]

Karen Peris
Enya
Ella Fitzgerald
Billie Holiday
Gillian Welch
A & A from ABBA
Ronnie Spector
Regina Spektor
CECILIA BARTOLI

[hypehat]

Mette Lindberg of the Asteroids Galaxy Tour.
Joan Baez.
Astrud Gilberto.

Have you heard Astrud singing 'In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning'? It's absolutely heartbreaking

[rab2591]

Mette Lindberg of the Asteroids Galaxy Tour.
Joan Baez.
Astrud Gilberto.

Have you heard Astrud singing 'In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning'? It's absolutely heartbreaking

Indeed it is! has to be my favorite song by her.....Definitely in my top 20 all time favs.

[louielouie]

Good question!

Mi top ten would be:
-Aretha Frankiln.
-Dusty Springfield
-Ella Fitzgerald
-Etta James
-Inara George
-Björk
-Big Mama Thornton
-Alicia Keys
-Joss stone
-Mama Cass

[Myk Luhv]

I forgot Nancy Wilson, the vocal jazz singer rather than the one from Heart, in particular her album Something Wonderful (rel. 1960 on Capitol, no less). I'm not so much a fan of jazz, honestly, and my knowledge of traditional pop/vocal jazz is pretty slim, but I like the way she phrases things and doesn't oversing. She's subtle and seems to know exactly what a song calls for interpretation-wise. It doesn't hurt that the music itself is real nice too!

[Amy B.]

Joni Mitchell
Aretha Franklin
Tori Amos
Regina Spektor
Cass Elliott
Fiona Apple
Billie Holiday
Nina Simone
Natalie Merchant

[JK]

Five that come immediately to mind are:

Judy Craig (Chiffons)
Mary Weiss (Shangs)
Lorraine Ellison
Mary Davis (SOS Band)
Enya

[Mike's Beard]

Think I need to throw Siouxsie Sioux's name in here too.

[Heysaboda]

Joni Mitchell
Judy Collins
Tanita Tikaram
Kate Bush
Mary Black
Mary Hopkin
Chrissie Hynde
Regina Spektor 

To anyone: go check out the song "I Never Will Know" sung by Tanita Tikaram, on Mark Isham's self titled LP.  Wonderful!