What's your three fave male rock vocalists?

A great vocalist, sadly gone from us.....CC

What's your three fave male rock vocalists?

I've been thinking about this for months. And I've finally decided on my three.

Of course, as time goes on, new music comes out and I discover other Voices of Destiny, this may change. But these three guys I believe would be hard to beat. And they're all from different vocal styles and backgrounds. Admittedly two of them were prominent in the late 70's and early 80's and one not heard of until the 90's and although each had his own style, they all possessed two things in common; pitch-perfect singing when required and POWER!

I looked at rock vocalists from the late 50's onwards, went through my record collection up to around 2018 and decided on the following three in no particular batting order:

Ronnie James Dio (Rainbow, Dio)

Mickey Thomas (Jefferson Starship)

Chris Cornell (Soundgarden)

Dio started a whole new genre of singers

For me, the 'Bel Canto'-trained Dio set the Gold Standard during the proto-metal years for all the metal vocalists to come. Some have come close, but IMHO, Dio is still the master of that genre. Rainbow Rising (1976) is the definitive proto-metal album for me with Richie Blackmore being, at the time, the world's guitar virtuoso.......that was until Eddie Van Halen came along. But the album wouldn't have been anything like as good as it is if not for Dio.

I could never sing like Mickey Thomas who had an unreal tenor range (I'm really baritone in that respect) and every note he hit, including the "impossible", his pitch was right in the middle of the note. Listen to any of Starships's late 80's tracks (when they were sadly in decline) and hear the power in this man's voice.

And finally - because it was years after Soundgarden's "Superunknown" album (1994) came out - that I finally had a good listen and was stunned. Not only because of the originality of the compositions and multiple unusual time-signatures used in the songs, but because of Cornell's vocal gymnastics from mumbling to 'blow out your ear drums' loud. The story goes that he actually broke several of the Neumann U87 microphones used for vocals just by singing into them so loudly. As loud as a thunderclap but never out of tune. Incredible! Listen to the track "Limo Wreck" from that album and you'll see what I mean. And.....drop the mic.

So, what are your three favourite male rock vocalists? Drop 'em in the comments. Now I'll have think about my three fave female rock vocalists.......