Wailing and Squalling

[Miguel]

"I took the growl out of the blues and replaced it with some kind of mellow moan."

Rolling Stone

Bland describes the evolution of his style that began as a young boy attending the New Salem Baptist Church in Memphis whose preacher, C.L. Franklin, was Aretha's dad:

"Couldn't have been older than 11 or 12 when Mama and them took me to hear this new preacher man everyone was talking about. This was the early Forties.

..."When he started into the preaching part, I stayed with him. Wasn't his words that got me – I couldn't tell you what he talked on that day, couldn't tell you what any of it meant, but it was the way he talked. He talked like he was singing. He talked music. The thing that really got me, though, was this squall-like sound he made to emphasize a certain word. He'd catch the word in his mouth, let it roll around and squeeze it with his tongue. When it popped on out, it exploded and the ladies started waving and shouting.

(the Fifties) "Nat Cole had gone from playing the piano with his trio to singing those pop ballads with lush strings behind him. I'm talkin' 'bout 'Mona Lisa' and 'Answer Me, Oh My Love' and 'Love Is the Thing.' Well, Nat was the thing. Nat had class. He was smooth but smooth with feeling. Also had his own TV show...Nat had crossed over until white people were buying his music, even though, at least to my ears, his music hadn't been compromised one single bit. Well, that was my dream – not to compromise my music but to create something new. Something modern. What Nat did to those pop ballads, I wanted to do to the blues. I wanted to keep that blues feeling that I loved so well, but I wanted to smooth it out. Make it real dreamy and romantic.

I kept wondering what would happen if I took the growl out of the blues and replaced it with some kind of mellow moan. Would people still like it or would they call me a traitor to the blues? It didn't take long to learn that the women sure-enough liked it and, brother, that was all I needed to know.

"So that's how I got my style – reworking them old blues by sneaking in a preacher's squall and covering it over with that pretty ballad style I borrowed from Nat King Cole."

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/b...z2s9CtPkBH

[30CamdenSquare]

When Haley said "Tonight I'll be singing Rolling in the Deep by Adele" I think I yelled "Yes finally" or something at my TV because, in her profile, on the Idol site, Haley had listed both Amy & Corinne under musical influences, so every week I was hoping she'd sing something by Amy, Adele, Duffy or Corinne on the show. (I know she sang "Breathless" by Corinne for Hollywood R1 but I guess I missed it, I was still just trying to sort out who was who at that point though).

Then when she was singing, I just remember thinking, she's killing it, she'll get a standing O & sail through a couple of weeks just for this alone.... but the judges didn't stand up, pretty good comments but not what I was expecting. What really surprised me was that she was in the bottom 3 the next week. That kinda floored me. Don't anybody know top notch wailin' & squalin' when they hear it?

[Himm2]

I think only one line of "Breathless" was televised. I think it was RITD that made me fully realize this girl is a superstar in the making...more so than B&TJ. The way she brought the audience into her world and had the blonde backup singers smiling in appreciation as they sang and people rockin' in their seats really grabbed me. I also had never heard the song before and when I finally saw Adele's music video of it I wasn't as impressed with Adele's version as I was with Haley's.

[NUG]

That was the first time I had ever heard Rolling in the Deep [/b]too! After Haley sung it on Idol, I got on the internet, and looked up to see who Adele was. I have always loved Haley's spunked up version of the song.

BABBS:That not was only you,almost 1M peoples like you never
heard nothing about Adele before Haley's performance including
me(I still prefer Haley's version)

Count me in to this group too.

[My Alter Ego]

Miguel, thanks for finding the article on the "birth of the squall." From a technique standpoint, it almost sounds to me as though Bobby Bland is inhaling (rather than exhaling) when he does it. I don't know how, realistically, he could do that without choking. (But then, I don't understand how Tuvan singers and Gyoto monks can produce more than one sound at a time, but they do.)

It probably has to do with that "squeezing" aspect that he discussed. A growl is definitely gutteral -- in sound, yes, but also in the technique required to produce it. But in a growl, the throat needs to be open in order to produce the sound.

I think that's the difference. The squall probably begins from a growl, but instead of keeping the throat open, the singer "squeezes" the throat, which then constricts the air flow. The end result being a sound similar to, but not a growl.

[midnightblues]

I thought wailing was fishing for wails in the squalls

[My Alter Ego]

I thought wailing was fishing for wails in the squalls

Teehee