The Best

Coming home this evening from Central Kansas and some time with the in-laws, we were listening to an oldies station out of Wichita. Kind of in the middle of the drive home, an Elvis Presley tune came on (Can't Help Falling In Love With You). I told my wife, "He DID have a good voice."
Yes, he did. For all of his faults and insecurities, he had "the voice". Not many singers of today or yesterday have or had "the voice", but there were some. I started thinking back to those singers that I knew and decided that there were three that stood out.
Elvis Presley. I don't know what it is, but it's just an effortless, milk chocolate smooth delivery. I don't care if it's the falling in love song or the hound dog song. His baritone is up there with Bing, who also had it. Sinatra had it, but didn't always use it.
Karen Carpenter. Taken entirely too soon by an insidious illness, Ms. Carpenter's voice just slides out of the speakers and eases into every recess, every corner, every cubic foot of the room as well as into every cell of one's being. She just fills the environment with beauty.
Sandi Patty. It was said of her by a fellow performer who was introducing her once, "No one ever has heard a voice like this." Her three octive reach beyond high C and below middle C is under her perfect control. She plays her voice as a maestro plays a Stradivarius, and like the violin, her voice responds...in spades.
You may well know other singers that I do not know, and your list may look different than mine. That's fine. These are the ones that I gravitate toward, and turn up the volume whenever they appear on the radio. Elvis is a more recent entry into my list, but he's there.
Others worth mentioning: Diana Ross, The Mills Brothers, Barry Manilow, The McGuire Sisters, The Lettermen, The Martins, Dean Martin (when sober), and maybe Patsy Cline, Mariah Carey, and Art Garfunkel.
Who would be on your list?