About 25 years ago it suddenly dawned on me that Todd & Daryl were/are vocal doppelgangers, in addition to being Philly boys who made good! It then occurred to me that Daryl’s truest vocal model wasn’t David Ruffin or any of the other Soul Immortals he’s cited, but rather the wunderkind known as Todd! So I’m delighted to have this theory more or less affirmed above, though it must be said that Todd’s voice lost its top end somewhere during the past twenty years (though his phrasing is still compelling), while Daryl–whom I had the pleasure of seeing last September at the Bumbershoot Festival here in Seattle–soldiers on unaffected by time, like the vocal Dorian Gray he’s always aspired to be!
By the by, there’s plenty of compelling YouTube footage available from Todd’s NEARLY HUMAN tour of 1990, which boasts the most overtly soulful singing Todd ever did, not that he was any slouch in that department prior to then…
“Mated” is a fine example…
– Tom Kipp
