Hey, Wally, In a message dated 3/4/02 6:40:47 PM, in the jmdl digest that I'm finally getting to after two/three days in bed, you wrote:
<< [incidentally, who started the unbearable craze for this nasal, unbearable kind of melisma? my guess is whitney houston when she raped our ears and our brains with her version of ''i will always love you''.] >> Yes!!! Oh, my friend and ambassador, how right and funny you are!!! How I hated that song, and the tendency for all singers to flatulate (or whatever) their melisma ever since then! Funny -- she'd belonged to the same family of gospel singers (the Gospelaires? I think) that her mom Cissy and her cousin/aunt Dionne Warwick belonged to -- in fact, Whitney and Cissy were frequently Dionne's backup singers over the years -- and Dionne "melisma'ed" from time to time, but she never overdid it. It's really since sometime in the '80's that all little girl singers, of all races and ethnicities, at least up here in the US, seem to need to do it to any sustained note. Yeucchhh! Hope you're well, querido, Walt
