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The Voice of Authority
March 25, 2006 — 6:37 am

In several of Laurie Anderson’s live and recorded works, she alters her voice with a synthesizer filter, making it deeper and male-sounding. She calls it the “Voice of Authority.” Probably its most notable use was on Home of the Brave‘s reworking of “Sharkey’s Night,” replacing William S. Burroughs’ voice from the (itself amazing) version on Mister Heartbreak. Amazon’s sample of the Home of the Brave version is short enough that you only get five or six words of the modulated voice, fading away at the end — you can hear a little more in this site’s sample (or, hell, download the song for 19 cents or the entire album for 98 if you’re OK with sketchy Russian copyright legality and zero artist royalties).

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is Daniel Schorr. The other day I heard one of his pieces on NPR as I was driving to work, and realized that his voice sounds exactly like Barbara Walters’ voice if it were run through Laurie Anderson’s voice modulator. Exactly. Same vowel sounds, “r” difficulties, tone and inflection as Walters. Same thick, almost rubbery texture as Anderson’s synthesized authoritarian. Listen to one of his pieces and hear for yourself. It’s uncanny, I tells ya. If I didn’t already know Daniel Schorr was a real guy, I’d suspect a hoax . . .

— Eric D. DixonComments (0)

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Eric D. Dixon


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