Younger Divas take note-Miss Maxine Brown!

[luke]

Just wonderful-classy classy--joyful performing- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-VqyE1QZN0&feature=related

[motown_david]

Top class performance from a wonderful lady. I've seen her perform twice in the UK now and each time her show was soul perfection. And a sweet and charming lady too.

[marv2]

Maxine Brown can still get down! I met her one night at B.B. Kings. Cool lady................

[luke]

I still wonder why some voices like hers, Mary Wilson's, Patti Labelle, Gladys Knight...are great and others deteriorate--I believe some musicians said on here awhile ago that age alone should not hurt a voice.

[Kamasu_Jr]

There are bits of deterioration in all of those voices mentioned. Everyone, especially singers are going to age, which can effect tone, volume, pitch and so on. We are all going to lose something.

[marv2]

I still wonder why some voices like hers, Mary Wilson's, Patti Labelle, Gladys Knight...are great and others deteriorate--I believe some musicians said on here awhile ago that age alone should not hurt a voice.

I don't know. All the ladies you cited still have it, strong. flexible voices. Mary Wilson seems to have even increased her vocal range and power over the years. I remember years ago on some awards show. They wheeled out an elderly, ailing Ella Fitzgerald, but once they put the mic in front of her she tore the roof off the place. The audience went wild!

[topdiva1]

I don't know. All the ladies you cited still have it, strong. flexible voices. Mary Wilson seems to have even increased her vocal range and power over the years. I remember years ago on some awards show. They wheeled out an elderly, ailing Ella Fitzgerald, but once they put the mic in front of her she tore the roof off the place. The audience went wild!

Ella indeed STILL HAD THE VOICE!!!!!

[Kamasu_Jr]

Ella indeed STILL HAD THE VOICE!!!!!
I strongly disagree. Ella Fitzgerald still had a voice but near the end of her life, it was not the same clear, girlish and expressive instrument it had once been. Yes, she could still sing, but her pitch and control were not the same as it had once been. She could still move audiences, but it was more out of sympathy and people remembering how she had once sounded. Age is going to make us all deteriorate in many ways. Nobody escapes life and aging unchanged. That's just a fact.

[arrr&bee]

Yes i remember that performance,classy!!

[ady_croasdell]

But many gain stagecraft, better phrasing and simply knowledge of the ups and downs of life that they can infuse their music with. They understand which songs work better for them and what they mean to their audience too. A singer like Mary Love turned from a naive teenage girl into a powerful woman singer after decades as a serving minister and took her act, even with the basic simple 60s soul pop songs that she first cut, to a new dimension.

Maxine is one of the finest examples of an act getting better each year. The added confidence and experience far outweigh and vocal deterioration, if in fact there is any, I certainly couldn't spot it.

[randy_russi]

Some age with health problems and that certainly will affect the voice. Some have sang in some not so voice-friendly
venues which has affected them too. And then there are those who have abusive habits which affects voices with
age.

[Kamasu_Jr]

I AGREE. HEALTH PROBLEMS & POOR PERSONAL HABITS can affect a singer's voice. My point is, few singers Maxine Browni included, are going to sound the same way at 69 or 70 that they did at 25. Some singers do gain from life, knowing their stagecraft and how to use their voices in other ways after aging. But you can't avoid the deterioration that comes from age.

[randy_russi]

This is true as we all should know--just a speaking voice over the phone gives you a clue to the person being either
older or younger--at least sometimes.