Voices: How a Great Singer Can Change Your Life

British music journalist Coleman (The Train in the Night) examines the importance of the human voice on his life and in popular music in this intriguing study. Coleman treasures the voice (“Before words are distinguishable, voices make some sort of case for our close attention,” he writes), which comforted and helped him socialize as an awkward teenager. He arranges his book by categories of his own classification—for example, “Vulnerable” (Marvin Gaye and Roy Orbison) and “Class Acts” (John Lennon and Mick Jagger)—and his all-star lineup of American popular music heroes includes Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Little Richard. Coleman eloquently describes the music of Motown singer Marvin Gaye as a mix of “beauty and self-delusion” and notes the “otherworldly intensity of the Pentecostal church” in Aretha Franklin’s soaring sound. He explains how the sounds of American R&B, blues, and soul music emerged in the voices of Mick Jagger, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and the shape-shifting David Bowie. As Coleman contemplates the sound of soul, he reaches beyond the voice to discover the lyricism in the instrumental jazz of Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Coleman beautifully reveals the sheer pleasure of listening to music. [em](Nov.) [/em]