Geoff Castellucci

[igenlode]

I recently came across singer Geoff Castellucci and was very impressed. He is not just a spectacularly low bass singer but has a lovely upper range (he calls himself a baritone who happens to have a bass range) added to a soaring falsetto which means he can basically multi-track himself into an entire barbershop quartet. And he also happens to have an expressive, humorous face and acting talent to go with it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzlT80jQ3lo

Brilliant production of the "Oogie Boogie Song" from "Nightmare Before Christmas" (a film I don't even much like...) starring Geoff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiTguw5lBHM

[Edit: and "The Headless Horseman" as well. It's not just good singing, it's good performance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rrg0ksSQdw ]


Also, Freddie Mercury sings soprano: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gO8rPCBo8o
I was never much impressed by his famous collaboration with Montserrat Caballé (which just makes the artificiality of opera all the more incongruous), but this is astonishing -- this must be what the great castrati sounded like, neither the ethereal tone of a counter-tenor nor the clarion ring of a tenor, but the soprano range with a full male physique behind it.

Comments

[capri0mni]

I found Geoff Castellucci last year, I believe, when I stumbled upon a VoicePlay (The group he sings with, when he's not singing solo) cover of Mr. Blue Sky (He's not heavily featured in that one, but that's how I found him).

What really impresses me is his clear enunciation while singing. Usually, YouTube's automatic closed caption generator is so confused by singing that it just gives up and says "[Music]." But on his videos the algorithm can keep up with a good 90% of it. His cover of the Bing Crosby Christmas song "Mele Kalikimaka" is a good example of that. https://youtu.be/zT894S_zoD0 The song that's just pure "cheer me up" material, however, is his cover of "Bare Necessities" https://youtu.be/GaHV8yILG2k from The Jungle Book (the auto-captioning on that is about 50-50 accurate and word salad.

[igenlode]

Hah, yes -- those captions on "The Bare Necessities" are quite amusing! :-D

(I'm not sure why, as in real life I had a lot more difficulty making out the lyrics for "The Headless Horseman" -- perhaps because it's not a song I know?)

I think what really impresses me about Geoff Castellucci is not the low notes but the quality and delivery of them; generally speaking he manages to make it musical rather than just freakish (although he does insert the odd 'show-off' note). I came across a 'Battle of the Basses' video on YouTube that someone had compiled showing the bass singers in various similar a cappella groups, which mainly concentrated on how low you could go, and Geoff was definitely the only one I'd actively have wanted to listen to, simply on the grounds of performance and delivery. And humour, which seems to be a general VoicePlay thing ;-)

[capri0mni]

Pentatonix's new bass -- or at least, post-Avi Bass (Matt Sallee) -- is quite musical, too. And I'm enjoying Avi Kaplan's newer solo work.

But yeah, of the major a capella groups on YouTube, right now, here's how I'd classify them:
Pentatonix: Dance party
Home Free: Country
Voctave: Choral, bordering on Operatic
VoicePlay: the goofy theater kids

[erimia]

Ah, I remember coming across the video of Castellucci singing "Sixteen Tons". Basses are not my thing, but he is impressive.

[igenlode]

YouTube recommended me that video after I'd watched some hip-hop singer being totally bemused by the Animals' "House of the Rising Sun" (and completely misinterpreting the lyrics; even at ten I knew enough to guess that it wasn't his brothers and sisters the protagonist was singing about, and that the House of the Rising Sun was a bad place...)

After that I was sufficiently impressed to want to seek out more.