The Voice of Kelly Jones

The sirens that inhabit the seas around the ship of my consciousness are not all women. Just recently I found a live recording of Kelly Jones, the lead singer of Stereophonics. His voice threatens to pull me from the mast and into the cold waters of dreaming, and I want to tell you why. First off, I will acknowledge and then banish the similarity between the vocal stylings of Kelly Jones and Rod Stewart. Yes they sound alike at times, but where Rod struts and preens Kelly rocks and wails. Having gotten the obvious out of the way, allow me to detail what I hear in Jones’s voice. The first thing is the rough, edgy sound of it. He sounds as if he is about to cough or cry, but the notes are caught on this ragged precipice eternally, right at the edge of comfort and distress. Another element of his voice that deserves mention is that it does not seem to break or fade when he pushes it harder. Some singers have sweet sounding voices, but if they try to put more energy into belting out a lyric then what at first sounded nice becomes pitiable. Then there is the way that his voice seems to abide somewhere between intellect and emotion, as if he knew exactly what he wanted to say but still could not hold back his feelings. Mostly when I hear him I want to be able to make those same sounds; alas, this is a gift of which I was not graced. If you want to hear exactly what I have been writing about then go to this link. Kelly starts singing at 2:15 into the interview, and mind you this is a live performance: http://youtu.be/wklvFaBSnc8