Annette Peacock - I'm The One

Diamanda Galas: What about Annette Peacock, especially on “I’m the One”?
There’s another singer that I love. Annette Peacock.
How about Amy Winehouse on “Back to Black” – is she singing or just grabbing a bunch of R&B vocal shtick from her trick bag?
Well, I felt that her very early singing, when she was different – she looked different – was quite promising, and really good. Then later on she sang a lot of things like a series of vocal pastiches; she went to one of those schools in England where they teach them American-style black singing, more or less, or like a Dusty Springfield thing. I heard the pastiche in Amy’s singing, but I loved the sound of her vocal instrument; I liked the sound of it so much that I didn’t care that she did her vaudeville shtick or whatever. A lot of vaudevillians did their shtick too, but I’m very addicted to the sound of an instrument.
I love Julie London’s sound. Oh God, Julie London. Jesus Christ. Someone wrote me recently that my singing reminded them more of Sonny Rollins than it did Dinah Washington or any other singer per se. I thought that was a very interesting comment because the sound is, for me, the first thing. If I don’t like the sound of a voice, I immediately turn it off.
Patty Waters - Black Is the Color of My True Love’s Hair
You’ve talked a lot about Patty Waters’ “Black Is the Color of My True Love’s Hair.” Was it an influence on your singing style, technique, attitude?
The song was so incredible, I was crazy about it in the ‘70s. [Bassist] Mark Dresser played it for me and I was knocked out. I thought, this is really unfair that nobody knows who she is. I wanted people to know that I had heard her in the ‘70s, so I said, “She must be one of my influences.” But I didn’t mean it literally, I meant it’s that you have your ears and you hear things all day and somehow there’s a thing that happens, lots of choices that you make throughout the day about what you’re going to keep in your ears and what you’re not. So I cannot imagine that I wouldn’t have kept something in my ears of hers. I don’t sound anything like Patty Waters, my work has not been inspired by her at all, but I have to praise her for having preceded me.
Doris Day is an underrated singer on “Fly Me to the Moon,” no doubt on account of her squeaky-clean image.
But you know what, who underrated her? Because, let’s face it, in Hollywood, she was number one. So among whom is she underrated? The jazz community? Well, who gives a fuck, man. They wouldn’t have given her a buck anyway. They don’t have a buck to give. So, really, if you think about it, who underrates her? I’m probably one of the only singers who actually discusses her, because most singers don’t want to be associated with that kind of, you know, daisy vibe. I don’t care about whether she’s smiling obscenely while she’s singing, I’m just listening to the voice, you know? She was also a stupendous dancer. And to imagine that a singer can sing like that while dancing is pretty incredible.
Doris Day sings with a kind of Bach tone – restrained. She sings this pure legato, the pure melody. And how many singers actually sing the melody of a fucking song before they do their shtick to it? Very few, and it’s because they can’t hit the notes, or they can’t hear the notes. We have a lot of jazz musicians who obviously do the same thing. It’s like they can’t hear the changes, so they never play the melody right, ever!
Let’s talk about your 1994 album with John Paul Jones, The Sporting Life.
What I like about John Paul Jones so much is reflected by the evening in which he and I sat and went through a songbook of the Supremes. We were working on our record. I was shocked that he knew and had done the arrangements for all these Motown acts coming through London, and that he had done those arrangements for a lot of singers. I was shocked, because I love that music so deeply and because for so many years I just despised the Beatles. Jesus! I respect the production stuff very much, but the idea of the Beatles and the whole Beatles thing just made me sick because, for me, the [harmonic/melodic] changes of the Supremes were so sophisticated.