He hasn’t ended his singing career, just his recording career. And in case you haven’t noticed, many others have drastically slowed down as well. Very hard to make money on a CD in today’s electronic file sharing world.
Whoever has a favorite singer, to them that singer is the King of Jewish Music. I believe most Jewish singers feel that MBD is the KING. He really was the one who started out solo in a new era of Jewish Music and inspired all the others to follow suit. All the other Jewish records at the time were all groups.
As far as retiring from recording, there is always “come backs” so we will all just have to wait and see.
Avraham Fried is as good today as he was 20-30 years ago. He is, in my books, right in line with MBD and I always enjoyed his albums + performances. IMHO If anyone deserves a nomination for next King of Jewish music, it’s him.