(Re)authoring the 27 club: Bewildered voices, acousmatic audiophilia and the dangers of listening-in

Abstract

Abstract This article considers the limits, layers and potential of vocal mimesis in the creation and performance of a new musical theatre work. Reflecting on the process and production of All That’s Left – a musical that performed imagined conversations between pop-culture icons from ‘The 27 Club’ – I conceptualize voice as a plural space that connects imitation and originality by exposing, negotiating and re-siting the boundaries of mimetic vocality. Specifically, using Hillel Schwartz’s The Culture of the Copy (1996) as a basis for discourse, I offer three readings of vocal mimesis as an act that constructs a space of plural and paradoxical possibilities. First, I consider the fidelity of timbral imitation or accent in ‘singing like the celebrity’, and use Simon Frith in dialogue with Roland Barthes’ concept of the ‘grain’ to explore the paradox of vocal bewilderment in performing original versions of celebrities. Second, I reflect on the use of recorded voice, to suggest that acousmatic voice unveils the limits of mimesis while allowing a sonic (re)authoring in the process. Third, I consider the audience as transgressors, and suggest that in listening-in to the ethereal and imagined thoughts of a long-deceased rock star, they themselves perform the very (re)authoring the mimetic voice offers.