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Originally Posted by Fat Elvis  Yeah, I get chills at the acapella beginning.
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I've long contended that, if Lennon isn't the greatest rock and roll singer of all time (he's certainly my favorite), it can be argued that he was the first true "rock and roll" singer.
By the time The Beatles began recording, he had so thoroughly absorbed his influences that he's not singing country, blues, or r&b; he has none of the stylistic tics of those forms. In particular, his desire to top even the enormous volume of the Beatles' recordings (by comparison, the early Stones albums sound like they were recorded over the phone) was radically different from most blues/r&b singers who, from Junior Parker to Mick Jagger, are at their best when holding something back, never getting too far on top of the music.
Lennon would have none of that, and if the sound of the music was big, he insisted on being bigger. No one before him had ever captured so perfectly the way that the sheer exhilirating volume of rock and roll can celebrate pain and pleasure in equal doses. There is so much emotion spilling into his singing that even something like "Twist and Shout" takes on a depth way beyond anything the Isley Brothers could have dreamed; only Little Richard could approach him, and Lennon had him beat six ways to Sunday in terms of the range of emotion his voice could convey.
Bon Scott certainly took a lesson or two.
