Paul sounded awful in those Decca days. He was constantly "putting on" a voice, over emphasizing lyrics and various enunciations...horrible tone..almost like a cross between a Latin flavored Elvis and Ricky Ricardo. Quite thankfully, the only remote trace we got of this "style" by the time of Parlophone was his vocal on A Taste Of Honey. After that, it was the "Paul" we grew to know and love all the way.
Paul's scary-good versatility--that ease with which he could fall into different genres--and desire to please a crowd probably gave us that voice, which sounds like a weird amalgamation of stuff that was popular at that time. John, correspondingly, was only ever able to be John Lennon, even when he was trying to sound like Buddy Holly or Smoky Robinson.
What you're saying about John's voice is ultimately true...but much as Paul was the technically superior vocalist, I always found John's singing voice to have the most charisma.
What I call his "booming" voice; I've always been a fan of it! My daughter, an otherwise reasonably enthusiastic Macca fan, hates it! I imagine it must be some kind of vocal gymnastic a singer can't go on doing forever... I wonder if vocalists like Captain Beefheart (whom appeared on the British scene in '67 I think) inspired Paul to sing this way? Beefheart himself didn't go on like that for such a long time, I believe...
That’s a great cover, one of the best on Run Devil Run. I actually didn’t know until recently that “Coquette” wasn’t originally a rock song and that Fats Domino basically wrote a new arrangement for it when he recorded it.
A big part of what's great about The Beatles, a raw and charismatic singer, next to one that was technically excellent and could sing almost anything, with a fantastic harmony singer too. A dynamite combination of voices that are very engaging to listen to.
When I first got the Hey Jude album at age 10, and it was my very first album, I thought it was Ringo singing Lady Madonna
The human voice usually changes as we age, perhaps there came a point when Paul could no longer do that particular singing style as convincingly as he once had (his 'Lady Madonna', 'Back in the USSR', 'Why Don’t We Do It In The Road', 'That Would Be Something', 'I've Got a Feeling', "Out of college, money spent" vocal styling).
...that reminds me...it was some weekday morning in homeroom in 7th grade in 1969 and a friend and I were talking about the new Beatle album. He says to me (paraphrasing here), "I love the part in You Never Give Me Your Money where Ringo sings". I said, "I know which part you're talking about and it's Paul, not Ringo". He didn't believe me. Then I asked proudly and smugly, "who sings Lady Madonna..??" He suddenly saw (or rather, heard)the light. I rested my case.
