Editing John Lennon (section)

===Vocal style===
Lennon's vocal style was heavily influenced by [[Little Richard]], [[Larry Williams]] and [[Little Willie John]]; the British music writer [[Ian MacDonald]] noted that "no white singer" had been able to imitate them successfully before Lennon and McCartney. MacDonald contrasted Lennon's singing voice, a "brassy [[Northern England|northern]] roar flecked with bluesy moans", with the "conventionally glamorous" voices of earlier artists such as [[Elvis Presley]], [[Dean Martin]] and [[Cliff Richard]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=MacDonald |first=Ian |author-link=Ian MacDonald |url=https://archive.org/details/peoplesmusic0000macd |title=The People's Music |date=2003 |publisher=[[Pimlico]] |isbn=978-1-84413-093-1 |edition= |series= |location=London |pages=107–108}}</ref> The British critic [[Nik Cohn]] observed of Lennon, "He owned one of the best pop voices ever, rasped and smashed and brooding, always fierce." Cohn wrote that Lennon, performing "[[Twist and Shout]]", would "rant his way into total incoherence, half rupture himself".<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ImX4CwAAQBAJ&pg=PT210 |title=The Beatles: Paperback Writer: 40 Years of Classic Writing|editor-last=Evans|editor-first=Mike |year=2014 |publisher=Plexus Publishing |isbn=978-0-8596-589-66|access-date=28 October 2020|archive-date=17 April 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230417075421/https://books.google.com/books?id=ImX4CwAAQBAJ&pg=PT210|url-status=live}}</ref> When the Beatles recorded the song, the final track during the one-day session that produced the band's 1963 debut album, ''[[Please Please Me]]'', Lennon's voice, already compromised by a cold, came close to giving out. Lennon said, "I couldn't sing the damn thing, I was just screaming."{{sfn|Wenner|2000|p=14}} In the words of biographer Barry Miles, "Lennon simply shredded his vocal cords in the interests of rock 'n' roll."{{sfn|Miles|2001|p=90}} The Beatles' producer, [[George Martin]], tells how Lennon "had an inborn dislike of his own voice which I could never understand. He was always saying to me: 'DO something with my voice!{{nbsp}} ... put something on it{{nbsp}}... Make it ''different''.{{'"}}{{sfn|Coleman|1992|pp=369–370}} Martin obliged, often using [[double tracking|double-tracking]] and other techniques.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Andrews |first=Travis |date=3 October 2018 |title=He did the impossible and made John Lennon sound like the Dalai Lama |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2018/10/03/he-did-impossible-made-john-lennon-sound-like-dalai-lama/ |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Hodenfield |first=Chris |date=15 July 1976 |title=George Martin Recalls the Boys in the Band |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/george-martin-recalls-the-boys-in-the-band-115547/2/ |access-date=1 June 2024 |magazine=[[Rolling Stone]]}}</ref>

As his Beatles era segued into his solo career, his singing voice found a widening range of expression. Biographer Chris Gregory writes of Lennon "tentatively beginning to expose his insecurities in a number of acoustic-led 'confessional' ballads, so beginning the process of 'public therapy' that will eventually culminate in the primal screams of '[[Cold Turkey]]' and the cathartic ''[[John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band]]''."{{sfn|Gregory|2007|p=75}} Music critic [[Robert Christgau]] called this Lennon's "greatest vocal performance{{nbsp}}... from scream to whine, is modulated electronically{{nbsp}}... echoed, filtered, and double tracked."{{sfn|Wiener|1990|p=143}} David Stuart Ryan described Lennon's vocal delivery as ranging from "extreme vulnerability, sensitivity and even naivety" to a hard "rasping" style.{{sfn|Ryan|1982|pp=118, 241}} Wiener too described contrasts, saying the singer's voice can be "at first subdued; soon it almost cracks with despair".{{sfn|Wiener|1990|p=35}} Music historian Ben Urish recalled hearing the Beatles' ''[[The Ed Sullivan Show|Ed Sullivan Show]]'' performance of "[[This Boy]]" played on the radio a few days after Lennon's murder: "As Lennon's vocals reached their peak{{nbsp}}... it hurt too much to hear him scream with such anguish and emotion. But it was my emotions I heard in his voice. Just like I always had."{{sfn|Urish|Bielen|2007|p=123}}