Hughes' voice is one of a kind and he still has amazing range (unlike Coverdale). What he totally lacks is what Coverdale has (or used to have) in abundance: the authority to fill a room with a few notes of his voice. Hughes is always hypheractive with his voice, embellishing things to death (sometimes), Coverdale can sing something quietly, low key and laid back and still grip you. To me, Hughes is a muso's singer, musicians dig what he does because they can appreciate the technique and enthusiasm behind it. Non-musicians, women in particular, are relatively unmoved by what he does and find his vocal gyrations grating. To hear what I mean:
Coverdale (trademark heavy breathers and all):
(my how the boy from Rrredcarrr who had his northern accent mocked by Blackmore in 1973 has adopted a nice posh London accent over the decades)
Hughes (his version of Georgia on my Mind not only splits his groin - and I have recordings where his shrieks are even higher -, but also the audience right down the middle into lovers and haters):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwE69M1uTyY&feature=relatedBut together their voices were more than the sum of the respective parts.
(where the two switch from verse to verse and sing the anthemic chorus together, that guitar solo was played with a screwdriver by the way as Blackmore was bored with the track and wanted to document just that, the outcome is one of his greatest solos though!)
If Coverdale and Hughes got back together again, recorded a selection of Motown and blues classics with someone like Rick Rubin producing, I am positive that they would be selling shitloads of CDs with their duet style and eclipse commercially anything they have done individually in the last 20 (Coverdale) or even thirty (Hughes) years.
