The classic singer that Jack Black “obsessed” over
Jack Black has always done the impossible whenever he plays with Tenacious D. It’s hard enough trying to be funny onstage, but being funny and a great singer on top of it hardly feels fair for the rest of us, but Black only got that way from listening to some of the greatest vocalists of his generation.
Because when listening to any of his songs, it’s easy to marvel at how much passion Black puts into every song he sings. Yes, some of the tunes themselves are an acquired taste and could easily become completely ridiculous in anyone else’s hands, but the fact that the Tenacious D versions of Britney Spears’s ‘Baby One More Time’ and Chris Isaak’s ‘Wicked Game’ are genuinely great vocal performances from Black, especially the latter which includes him holding back perfectly.
A lot of his songs might involve a lot more aggression than what is called for, but that only comes from him learning from some of the best singers of his generation. If you were anywhere close to rock in the 1980s, it was all about listening to the greatest metal vocalists of all time, and while Black did have his fair share of Ozzy Osbourne records blaring throughout his childhood, there was a softer side to him that could switch up his songs on a dime.
Although some of the softer moments are played off for laughs like ‘Inward Singing’, there are also the tight harmonies in a song like ‘The Metal’ that are fantastic to listen to alongside the heaviest riffs known to mankind. But in the same way that most guitarists are taught to learn acoustic first to develop their chops, the best way for anyone to entertain an audience is being able to sing a cappella and still have the audience in the palm of their hands.
Black could certainly ham it up whenever he performed, but that actually came from listening to people like Bobby McFerrin. Sure, many people only know him for the song ‘Don’t Worry Be Happy’, but even when listening to what many consider to be one of the worst songs of the 1980s, it’s beyond impressive that McFerrin was able to create an entire mix of voices that sounded good on the radio without having to use a single instrument outside of his own larynx.
And when Black heard him for the first time, he knew he had to figure out what was going on with McFerrin, saying, “I was obsessed with him, because I had always imagined going out on stage by myself and blowing people’s minds just with the power of my singing voice. Long before ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy,’ he was blowing people’s minds with incredible covers of Beatles songs. … His voice would sound like all of the different instruments.”
While there’s a lot of impressive things that McFerrin did on record, his talent isn’t something that can be properly felt until you see him live. Some of the footage taken of him from his prime feels like watching a trained vocal athlete go through an entire workout regiment throughout a single song, usually jumping through different octaves in a single second and managing to create a rhythm by pounding on his chest.
But in a way, Black has carved out a place in the vocal department that isn’t all that different from what McFerrin does. The a cappella giant may have had the luxury of being able to go onstage as a one-man band most of the time, but Black could simply make up a song on the spot in front of a crowd and get a crowd cheering for him based on both power and charm.
