Yahoo Music Fans What vocal range does Sammy Davis Jr. had Tenor or Baritone?

First of all, back in the day, singers didn't go all out to exaggerate their vocal ranges to ridiculous extremes, so 3-5 octaves is kind of an unrealistic as "typical", though many trained singers have at least 3 octaves at their disposal. Back then, they also only counted notes they could actually sing without grunting or squeaking because those types of noises were considered ugly. Minnie Ripperton was a rare singer who could actually sing words in the whistle register....but I digress.

Sammy Davis, Jr. was considered a baritone. His voice does have a light warm timbre to it, but not all singers belonging to the same vocal category necessarily sound exactly alike or have the exact same ranges. What notes Davis could sing, I'm not sure. There are several conflicting sources on the internet, and I suspect most of them are completely wrong. I do know he had a good range, based on both his pop hits and his work on Broadway (yes, he did Broadway). Many male Broadway roles when he performed could be played either by baritones with a good top register, or tenors that had good low register. Lot of the songs in "Stop the World I Want to Get Off, a musical in which he performed to acclaim, span an octave and a half or more. He would have had to sing these songs night after night LIVE. He also sang a lot of the songs throughout his career as "signature songs". These songs don't necessarily start and stop on the same notes, so he would have had to have around 2 1/2 octaves to be able to sing what he did the way he did with no strain whatsoever in any part of the songs. Now I suspect his range was larger, but again, singers back then were more concerned about sounding good and not just showing off how low or high they could go. I don't recall him using falsetto...AT ALL (at least not to my recollection). But I do know that many baritones have incredible falsetto ranges. Singers that sang the type of pop or standard type music that Davis did also tended to deliberately transpose songs into whatever key was the most flattering.

I've done this as a singer, where I moved a key up as little as a half step (usually up since I have a high voice) because it flatters MY voice better to do so. It's not that I necessarily sound BAD in the original key, but if I have the option of more than one key, I'll pick the one I WANT. I could very well sing in any and all of them, depending on the song.

There is too much emphasis on the "quantity of voice' than the "quality". Maybe that's why so many singers must be auto-tuned these days--to fix pitches of notes they can't really hit on key.

This is a great example of his talent--where he has great fun imitating other singers of the day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAdO9QInDSs&ab_cha...

Tenor Vocal Range

Sammy Davis Jr Height