Performers Who Sound Alike

Ever, say, listened to a cast recording and was convinced you were hearing a certain performer before realizing it was someone entirely different?

For the longest time, I thought that the Pimp's line in "Look Down" in Les Miserables ("Leave the poor old cow, move it, Madeleine") was actually oen of Javert's lines because the performer on the OBC sounds so much like Terrence Mann.

Also, I thought that the original Boq from Wicked (Is this Christopher Fitzgerald? I'm sorry, I really don't know much about "Wicked") was the same person as the original Armand in "The Scarlet Pimpernel," but that turned out to be Giles Chiasson.
And I was convinced that Ugly from the original Wichita recording of "Honk" was a younger, less polished Sean Palmer, but it was Arthur Marks. And Damien Perkins on the OBC of AIDA sounds exactly like Derrick Baskin to me, but I guess that makes sense, because I thiiiiink Derrick Baskin also played Mereb at some point?

Anyone else have any examples of performers who sound alike, or am I the only one dumb enough to confuse people's voices?

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Updated On: 12/28/08 at 05:48 PM

i always thought sherie rene scott and felicia finley sounded similar. then again they both played amneris in aida.

Diana Kaarina and Jennifer Paz.

(Though not from a cast recording.)

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Updated On: 12/28/08 at 05:59 PM

Kerry Ellis and Stephanie J. Block.

Listen to the final "Ahh" on "Defying Gravity" on Kerry's CD, and compare it to the press video of Steph doing it. It's almost identical, at least to me.

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Yeah, I've mistaken male singers for women on many occasions... and vice versa. I was convinced that Eddie Korbich as Scuttle in "The Little Mermaid" was actually a girl.

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Liz Callaway and Lea Salonga sound alot alike to me.

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Personally I think everyone who has sung the role of Elphaba sound alike and are basically interchangeable.

^ I think Kerry Ellis and Idina Menzel do. And I think Eden and Marcie Dodd have similarities. And Shoshana and screaming cats sound similar.

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i was watching Chicago last night and i realized that when Renee Zellweger sings 'Roxie', she sounds somewhat like Ashlee Simpson during her time playing Roxie in the West End production. and Laura Osnes sounds similar to someone, but i just can't remember. i think the person she sounds like might have played G(a)linda for a bit.

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Raul Esparza sometimes sounds kind of like Keith Michell.

I think Maria Friedman sometimes (though not always) sounds a bit like LuPone.

And Susan Watson sometimes (for example, on the Ben Franklin in Paris OBCR) sounds a bit like Barbara Cook sometimes, as does Rebecca Luker from time to time on some recordings.

And a bunch of people in the late '50s-early '60s all had a somewhat similar sound, that deep contralto belt: Dolores Grey, Susan Johnson, Joan Fagan, Helon Blount. Not indistinguishable by any means, though on the OBCR of Donnybrook it does almost sound like Joan Fagan was a singing student of Susan Johnson's.

Nowadays, it seems to me that a lot of the current women sound very alike. It's the Liz Callaway school of singing. I like Liz Callaway, but I don't want everyone to sound like her. For someone who hasn't done a lot of Broadway shows, Liz Callaway has been a strangely influential performer. Maybe it's just that she so exemplifies the contemporary belt-mix sound that everyone seems to want. I do think there's a bit of facelessness about the sounds we hear from a lot of performers nowadays.

But it does sometimes seem as if either a certain style is in vogue (like all those late '50s-early '60s women I mentioned) or a certain singer becomes very influential for a time. William Johnson played Alfred Drake's roles in Kiss Me, Kate and Kismet and it's not surprising: they sounded rather similar.

"I thought Carol Channing and Raul Esparza were the same person for a very long time."

But his voice is higher.

Funny but I'm listening right now to the OLCR of Promises, Promises right now and Betty Buckley sounds so much like Jill O'Hara. A more vocally secure Jill O'Hara. She really doesn't sound quite like this on any other recording.

Matthew Morrison & Cheyenne Jackson's singing voices sound the same as practically any boy band singer from the 1990's.

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nobodyhome-
See, Buckley still sounds too distinguished for me to mix her and O'Hara up on that album. Granted, I think she sounds far too reedy on it, but that's me.

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