Singers with Unique Voices: Leah McFall (The Unique Voices Club #24)

Every Friday, I write a post about singers with unique voices not commonly heard in mainstream music in an effort to educate emerging artists and music lovers and inspire them to embrace their own quirks. This week I'm writing on Leah McFall.

Photo from the Belfast Telegraph

Both Leah McFall and my sibling-in-law are from Northern Ireland but while my sib is more partial to guitar and poertry, Leah has a voice quirky enough to be written about in this blog. She channeled an inner Minnie Riperton with the best cover of "Lovin' You" I have ever heard to this day many moons ago and since then her voice has given me legit goosebumps.

While she has just one EP and a plethora of singles, she's duetted with Will.i.am, toured with Jessie J, worked with songwriters like Toby Gad and Sia and performed on the Grammys stage. Tom Hanks loves her. And she's also been burned by the mainstream pop world (as have countless others), deciding to go indie after being dropped by a major label. In fact, she wrote a whole memoir about her experience. But she doesn't want to be famous anyway, or at least it's not the central focus. Raised in a Christian household like me, she heavily leans on her faith and did through her career thus far.

"I wanted to tell others that as an artist you have a gift from God, because sometimes you can feel like simply a product to be marketed. But I wanted to make the point that I knew my musical talents and those of others are God-given, nobody can take that away from you and it is not curtailed or defined by any signed contract."

-Quoted from Joanne Savage's article for News Letter, "LEAH MCFALL: 'Nothing I achieved as an artist has sustained me as much as faith in God'

She said the above quote in reference to other artists getting treated just as badly even to the point of having whole albums put on the backburner. Kind of like when Chapell Roan called out how little artists are paid when she accepted her award at the Grammys. So many artists I'm a fan of, like bodie and others, decided to align with a more faith-based approach with their music and as a result created better music. So I wonder what she'll put out next, because she has quite a few Christian-lens songs released already.

Now, on to her voice. She grew up on a mishmash of stuff that her dad played, but she loves RnB. Given the fact that she covered Minnie Riperton to crazy acclaim, it's obvious she has the whole whistle register and five-octave vocal range to back up her talent. But she has a strong belt as well, complete with a little rasp and some squeaks, and weaves in and out of her chest and head voices fluidly. And her mouth acts like shapeshifter, altering its level of openness depending on whether she's belting a note out like lion or keeping it small and timid like a coquettish mouse. She's been described as having a "Marmite voice" that was assumed to polarize listeners liking it, but you can't deny that she's interesting to listen to. (For the record, I don't like Marmite. The American equivalent of the above term would probably be a pineapple pizza voice. Or a black licorice voice. But we cover a lot of them in this blog.)

As always, go follow Leah and any new music she puts out, and remember to share this blog and my website and whatnot to any aspiring creatives who need a confidence booster.

Also remember to tune in next week for The Unique Voices Club! If you sign up for my Patreon at the highest level, you get to suggest artists to me to write about in the future to inspire other listeners! And I'm in the middle of designing something for lower tier members as well so stay tuned😁.

Stay educated,

Alexia