Who is the female vocalist equivalent to Frank Sinatra (on his ballad albums)?*

That album (It's A Quiet Thing) specifically is all thematically divulged. The arrangements are cinematic - in a good way.

 

My grandmother was acquainted with Rosemary Clooney. They grew up in the same neighborhood and were teens together, sort of. They talked on the phone once in a while. My father worked at Grauman's Aerospace on Long Island with a couple of musicians of from Lionel Hampton's band. He brought home a number of cassettes of their rehearsals for me. I never actually listened to them. Wasn't my kind of music at the time. Oh well.

 

Well, Sinatra's range surpasses everyone in music, so I wouldn't expect an exact equal. But I will check out Julie London's concept albums.

 

Sarah or Barbra

 

Come to think of it I liked an album that came out in 1977-78, Remember My Name by Roberta Hunter, a jazz / blues singer who walked away from the music business to work as a nurse in Brooklyn, then made a brief comeback. A couple of the songs were new and in the movie, but she redefined some of her old songs too. The album surpasses the movie. It opens and closes on the downbeat and stays there inbetween. Roberta's vocal is outstanding on every track. Remember My Name is a kind of woman's Water Town.

 

I wasn't sure which album to choose ("Lady In Satin" is a great choice), but the first person that came to mind, who would meet (or for me exceed) the OP's needs, was Billie Holiday. I love Frank Sinatra (enough to be on this thread), but, for me, Lady Day is the greatest singer of that sort, bar none.

 

I don't disagree about Billie H. but I was looking for something aside from Billie H.

You don't think Lady In Satin is a little too bloody?

 

Maybe not here but I wonder how many may just have assumptions about Streisand's phenomenal recordings in her prime.
I suggest in comparison to the greatness of Sinatra, that folks check out original studio versions and some live of Barbra's

My Man
Don't Rain On My Parade
Cry Me A River
Down With Love
Free Again
Willow Weep For Me
Lover Come Back To Me
Summer Me Winter Me
What Are You Doing The Rest of Your Life?
How Does The Wine Taste?
What About Today?
Love Is A Bore
Somewhere
He Touched Me
Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Home
You're The Top
The Nearness of You
Fine and Dandy
All In Love Is Fair
Something So Right
Being At War With Each Other
What Now My Love
On A Clear Day
Bewitched, Bothered, Bewildered,
The Best Thing You've Ever Done
Coming In And Out Of Your Life
I've Never Been a Woman Before
Kiss Me In The Rain
Lover Man Oh Where Can You Be
Supper Time
My Lord and Master
Send In The Clowns
Someone That I Used To Love
I'll Know
Didn't We?

 

I've been spending tonight with the nearly forgotten Sylvia Syms. She was a favorite of Frank's. She's labeled a cabaret singer, but is a heck of an interpreter.

 

A cabaret singer might be just the ticket.
Which by Sylvia Syms? Wasn't she a British vocalist or have I confused her with someone else?

 

Sylvia Syms (singer) - Wikipedia

This masterful lady.

 

I’m not sure if it’s what you mean by “bloody” but the harrowing experience of listening to it has no equivalents in Sinatra’s discography. Maybe not anyone else’s either.

 

Yeah that's what I meant by bloody.

Which of her albums have you been listening to?

 

Carly Simon did an album called Torch, as I recall. Didn't quite cut the mustard but it was a good torch ballad album. If memory serves there was one original in which she called James Taylor a fool.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the two albums of 1950s cover songs Linda Ronstadt recorded with Nelson Riddle. Damn good albums.

 

Keely Smith or perhaps Lena Horne. Maybe Anita O'Day. Maybe.

 

I don't know... I tend to be such a gigantic fan that my bias makes it tough for me to answer that very well... as I said though, tough for me to choose a single/particular album of hers... and

I also love your bringing up those two Linda Rondstadt album with Nelson Riddle, they really are pretty spectacular... they are absolute stand outs among the many modern singers who have taken their swipes at the Great American Songbook era of material...

 

A great choice. Up there with Sarah Vaughan.

 

June Christy {Something Cool}

or

any Emmylou Harris concert since the 90s. All heartbreakers.

 

Dinah Washington's later Mercury and Roulette albums.

 

Tonight, "You Must Believe in Spring." One of her later efforts, around the time of her passing. I wish her album with sinatra would be rereleased.

 

Okay, bought it. You Must Believe In Spring and Torch Songs. Bought 'em both.

 

Which of Dinah's later Mercury and Roulette albums do you recommend, specifically?
Being Dinah they must be intense.

 

I acquired several of Emmylou's post-Wrecking Ball concerts and you're right, heartbreaker is the word, way beyond her country-folk roots.

June Christy suits me very well, I have Something Cool and a few others including This is June, Ballad of Night People.

 

A book I've been meaning to buy by a very good writer that should offer up some candidates:

https://www.amazon.com/Great-Jazz-Pop-Vocal-Albums/dp/0307379078/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

 

All of Sarah Vaughan's live albums are remarkable. Amazing artistry and technique delivered as if effortless, almost tossed off. She shares that casual command with Sinatra.

And I always think Ella Fitzgerald's take on a standard is, well, the standard. Certainly her Verve songbook albums are as iconic and revered as Sinatra's Capitol classics.

But I think both women were more instrumental in their gifts and approaches than Sinatra, who was more actorly. So in that sense, Billie Holiday, at least in her latter days, may be the better analogue.