I was just thinking earlier today--if I were ever to start a band, what would my ideal band be like? In terms of numbers, I think 5 members would be ideal. As far as instrumentation goes, it would be drums, bass, guitars and keyboards with occasional other instruments in the mix for good measure. There would be no one who only contributes vocals. That's not to belittle vocals by any means. Vocals are extremely important and I'll discuss that more later. But my band would not be a Rolling Stones-type band in that sense.
I enjoy a wide range of music from pop, rock, folk, R&B, funk, dance, country, blues, jazz, alternative, progressive, electronic and some of what is generically labelled as 'world' music. As a band performing original material I realize that we would most likely have to limit ourselves more specifically to one or two main genres only and then add touches of the others to our sound. So I guess we'd be pop rock, but the critics and fans would argue among each other whether we were really pop rock or folk rock or blues rock or alt rock or R&B or something else altogether. But we would definitely at times rock hard and loud or get funky and get the people dancing and at other times silence the audience with heartfelt, moving story songs.
Some of my most favourite bands include The Beatles, The Moody Blues, America, Three Dog Night and to a lesser extent, The Band. A common thread running among these bands is that they all had at least 3 lead singers. Having that many singers gave those bands varying textures of sound. I remember hearing Three Dog Night songs on oldies radio when I was a kid and being totally confused when I heard several completely different sounding songs by the band and hearing the DJ say it was them. For example, hearing "One," "Mama Told Me" and "Black and White" on separate occasions and being announced by the DJ as Three Dog Night on all occasions. The three unique voices gave their sound such diversity. America is another band that had three unique voices, albeit not as distinctive as Three Dog Night's. But they wrote all their own songs and were all excellent guitarists. The Moody Blues featured four excellent lead singers. My personal favorite being Justin Hayward with his uplifting vocals. Then there's Ray Thomas' rich baritone with vibrato. And Mike Pinder's dark and gloomy voice. And finally John Lodge's high falsetto. His is the voice I have the hardest time picking out because it's a bit similar to Justin's. But when I hear a soaring falsetto it is unquestionable John's. On their own, each voice gave each song its own finishing touch. When the four voices came together in harmony you'd have a perfectly woven textile.
The Beatles had three and sometimes four lead singers. The most distinguishable voice being that of Ringo's but the more famed ones being those of John, Paul and George. And they usually wrote most of their songs as well. The Band had three and sometimes four lead singers. In my opinion no other group had as many distinctive voices as The Band. I'm not the biggest Band fan but I appreciate their styles and what they did. Levon Helm, the drummer, was a frequent lead singer and had the unmistakable southern drawl which came out in speech and in song. Rick Danko had a strange, almost tearful voice which is still taking me time to get used to, though I really enjoy his singing on their Christmas song, "Christmas Must Be Tonight". And then there's Richard Manuel with his sometimes tenor sometimes falsetto vocal which continues to confuse me with Rick's. To me both of them have similar qualities in their vocal deliveries and tones and I have a hard time figuring out who's who on their songs. In fact I initially thought it was Richard who sang their Christmas tune. Finally, there's Robbie Robertson who wrote most of their songs but sang lead on only a handful. If you search on the 'net you will find that he was often criticized as being a pretty bad singer. But if you listen to "Out of the Blue" from The Last Waltz soundtrack you just may be convinced--as I am--that reports of bad singing on his part are greatly exaggerated.
So all this brings me to a very important point: that having multiple lead singers in a band--in my ideal band, that is--is something I would deem essential. I would want to have at least 3 members who could sing lead and contribute songwriting. Four would be even better but three would suffice. Songs on albums would be equally divided up among the 3 or 4 writers. And each writer would sing their own songs, unless any one of the writers felt their song would be better suited to one of the other voices. One of the things I liked about The Band and Three Dog Night is that on some of their songs different parts were sung by different members--We Can Talk, The Weight, Family of Man. That was done on some America and Beatles songs, too. Thus, in essence the ideal model for my band would be The Moody Blues (though it would have been nice if Ray would have played second guitar or something) and again, to a lesser degree, The Band (though it would have been nice if the singers actually contributed more to the songwriting). America was great, too, but they were always a 3-man band and never had a steady drummer and bassist. And The Beatles never usually allowed George more than one song per album side.
To recap, my ideal band would have 5 members with a basic instrumentation lineup of drums, bass, 1 or 2 guitars and 1 or 2 keyboards with other instruments as needed. The band would have at least 3 capable singers and songwriters. And under the generic term of rock we would perform both acoustic and electric, quiet and loud, dance-able and reflective, modern and classic-sounding. And we would cover a lot of musical territory. All we would need is a name.
