Gonna Run 2 U said:
I believe he could have had a singing coach during some point in his career. I mean just compare the strength of his voice from demo periods to achtung baby. A lot of it may have came just from sheer repetition of singing for years, maturation and finally mastering his craft. Im just curious if he is all natural talent or if they ever had him coached.
When they recorded UF, Bono had a vocal coach. His change from the demo days to the middle of the 80's has also alot to do with the natural learning if you start to sing and neve has done it before.
diamond said:
His voice was injured quite a bit after Joshua Tree/Rattle and Hum era.
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He strained his voica alot on JT tour, but Jt tour is nothing in straining and pushing the voice compare what he did on LT tour, yes all the straining and screaming was bad, but still impressive. The 1989-12-26 - Dublin show is the best example, his voice is very strong on the whole show, but there is a bit whsiper hoarse sound in the backgorund of his voice on that tour, wich was caused by all the screaming/straining. At the end of that show when he starts to sing Love Rescue Me yuo can realy hear how tired his basic voice is after a the whole show wich contains alot of screams and straining. But on LT he started to devolope a more deep sound in his voice. I realy love the sound he has in the studio version of Night And Day when he sings in the beginning of the song "only YOU" he sings the word you calm but still there is an amazing power. Something he never had durning JT tour.
But all those energy screams/strainings from LT tour did made damage, he had to change his vocal style totaly.
The story behind those soundboards on the Dublin show on LT tour was that Bono recorded them for a doctor to analize his vocal style. The doctor told him that if he contunie to sing lika that he would destroy his voice.
Well he did start to sing more carefully on AB/ZooTV, but still there where alot of strainings/scream on that tour and even more alcohol and smoking...
After ZooTV on the performences in 95 his voice was still strong but you could realy hear that his voice was shaky.
On Popmart his voice was much weaker, the falsetto had lost a bit power also. But he had still power in his voice, a example of that is the "say its true..." part on NYD, and the "up with the sun" part on Gone on the Sarajevo version.
In 98 he did a throat surgey, and that changed his voice even more, just listen to Slide Away with Michael H. His voice is so weak on that song, that must been just after the surgy. And it wasnt better on the pre tour of ATYCLB, on Elevation tour his voice was still weak but you could hear an improvement wich contunie in 2002 when they released Electrical Storm.
On the 2003 performences Bono's voice was much stronger but a bit shaky. It was like he just got a never stronger voice but hadnt figure out how to hanlde it.
From 2004-08 his voice has contunie to prove, there must be some way of voice coaching, but stilll his voice is healing from the throat surgey. It takes a long long time to heal that and get back on the top agian. And I think he is on the top now, but he will still contunie to devolpe his voice. His voice is much deeper, and richer in years. And his technique is better then ever, something that is amazing is that he mixing is emotional singing with technical singing. Something that many singers dosnt succed in doing, to much technical stuff can be booring. But in Bonos case
And yes his voice now is his best ever if you see in hitting high notes, clean notes with out scream/straining, holding them for long and in a technical view.
Some example are:
- Wide Awake on Bad is hit so clean and the HIGH C is also hit these days. Something that he never did on JT/LT and ZooTV tour. He had to strain and scream to hit the note, nut still he never came up to the HIGH C. These days it sound so easy for him to sing the note, he even sang the part three times in the song on Vertigo tour.
- On the LT tour when he sang "All I Want Is Youuuuuuuuu" he had to do it with a screaming voice, on Vertigo tour his voice was clean when he sang it, and it was high and even long(7 seconds on Buenos Aires).
- In the studio version of WOS he hit the "Wave" note with an amazing strong sound, that fully sound would have been impossible for Bono in trhe 80's/90's to get.
- His kermit oprah sound was taken one step further on Vertigo tour, listen to the snippet in the end of 2006-12-04 - Tokyo version of SYCMIOYO.
Gonna Run 2 U said:
I think the Joshua Tree/Rattle and Hum era was the strongest era of his voice.
In screaming yes, not in singing. But listen to Desire from the Union Chapel show last year, "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH Sister Can't Leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet you go", that is the strongest version ever on that line.
DevilsShoes said:
I remember reading an interview from the start of the Lovetown tour where Bono spoke of his admiration for BB Kings voice and how BB had been teaching him how to really belt out the high notes without ruining his voice, although I'm not sure exactly how effective this teaching was or how successfully Bono applied it.
Haha that was funny, I can agree with you that it wasnt to effective.