Price of Horror
Every fall, auditions for Halloween and Christmas voices are certain to stream in. Although I’ve got solid impersonations of Karloff, Lorre, and Lugosi, Vincent Price’s voice had eluded me. This year, I’ve decided to pay homage to the “Master of the Macabre” by imitating his voice from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”.
I’d had the privilege of seeing Vincent Price in person when I was a teen. He was in the Cleveland area to attend a Sherlock Holmes film festival (featuring Basil Rathbone). After the film, Mr Price did a reading of Poe’s “The Raven”. What an amazing voice and delivery… I was awestruck.
To approach such a unique and memorable voice, I took the time to listen to his original recording of “Thriller” (hear it at the bottom of this post). The audio reveals the many complexities of his voice. Pacing, accent, enunciation, delivery and musicality of the phrases. Add to this his baritone/tenor range, age and the effects of smoking and you’ll begin to hear the many layers involved.
After a few hours of analysis and trial mimicry takes, I felt ready to make my own mix…
Here is my homage to Vincent Price’s voice from “Thriller”:
… And here are Vincent Price and Michael Jackson from the original vo recording session, with a bonus verse in the middle:
Now it’s your turn!
What voices do you do during the holidays? Maybe it’s Santa, elves, or Scrooge. Perhaps some of the Haunted Mansion vo, the Grinch or Charlie Brown.
Let me know in the comments below…
All content written and voiced by Joe J Thomas online at: JoeActor.com
Nice stuff Joe, thanks.
I did an audition a few years ago on this very piece as the sample.
Messed around with voicing Karloff, Lorre, and Price. Messed around
means I haven’t studied em up good and ironed out the kinks.
Now that you’ve got me thinking about it, I better work it in my schedule. Cheers
Sound like a plan. You can always create characters based on the voices to 🙂
Wow, Joe, That was fantastic! Those two immortals talking to each other over their microphones, awesome!
I consider Vincent’s performance one of the great voice performances of all time. You could tell that he just LOVED doing it.
Can anyone tell me who WROTE it? Cuz it’s brilliant!
Again, thank you for that gift!
Craig Sechler
Thanks, Craig… the vo session is golden, yes?
Not sure who wrote it – I’d always assumed that Michael was the author.
Nice one!
A few years ago I unconsciously channeled Vincent Price for the video game ‘Black Knight Sword’. I didn’t realize until a bunch of reviewers pointed it out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s78JF1wk_0Y
Yes, I can hear the influence in your inflection and delivery. Cool!
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