Soulful Women(5-7)

This video has horrible sound quality but it was the best I could dig up that showed her vocals.  Susan is the closest thing to a Janis Joplin that we will get in a modern performer.  While still a budding artist, she has managed to get 3 Grammy nominations since 2000.  She is married to Southern Rock royalty and guitar phenom - Derek Trucks.  They met while he was playing guitar for the band his dad helped form - The Allman Brothers.  Susan was their opening act at the time.  She has a gritty soulful voice full of emotion. Her bluesy vocals get her the distinction of being the only modern performer in my list.
6. Sarah Vaughn
Sarah Vaughn played with some of the best jazz musicians to ever play - names like Charlie Parker, Earl Hines, Dizzie Gillespie, Billy Eckstine and Cliff Smalls.  Sarah won 3 Grammy's and the highest ward offered to a Jazz musician from the National Endowment for the arts - NEA Jazz Masters Award.

Sarah passed away in 1990 of lung cancer.  She was still described as having "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century.


5. Billie Holiday
Lady Day as she was sometimes called was considered to have changed the face of music for ever.  Her vocal style was strongly inspired by instrumentalists and pioneered a new way of manipulating wording and tempo, and also popularized a more personal and intimate approach to singing. The video I chose for Billie is "Strange Fruit".   It condemned American racism, particularly the lynching of African Americans that had occurred chiefly in the South for decades before this was written. Holiday's version of the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1978. It was also included in the list of Songs of the Century, by the Recording Industry of America and the National Endowment for the Arts.