|
Bing Crosby – The First Crooner Bing Crosby died more than 20 years ago, in 1977, but his
legacy and his music are still with us, especially during the Christmas holidays season. Many of his best-selling records were Christmas
songs, dating back to 1942’s perennial classic, “White Christmas.” Among his other gold records: “Silent Night”
(1942), “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” (1943), and “Jingle Bells”
(with the Andrews Sisters) (1943). There is
still something warm and comforting about that rich voice singing the Yuletide favorites
and Crosby’s original Christmas recordings can be found for auction on sites like
eBay while they are also to be found on currently available CDs. Harry Lillis Crosby was born May 3, 1903, in Tacoma,
Washington. As a boy he was a fan of a comic
strip called The Bingville Bugle, which starred
a character with protruding ears named Bingo. Crosby
also had ears that stuck out and soon his friends were calling him “Bingo,”
which was eventually shortened to “Bing.” The
name stuck with him all his life. Bing’s parents loved music and loved to sing, and Crosby
was briefly given formal singing lessons, but he soon dropped out. He was more interested in popular songs than
classical opera, and his hero was Al Jolson. In
college, planning to become a lawyer, Crosby bought a drum set by mail-order and was soon
good enough on them to be invited to join a local band, The Musicaladers, where he met Al
Rinker. The band was so successful that Crosby dropped out of college in his senior year
to focus on a career in music. But the band
itself fell apart, leaving Bing and Al on their own.
They took Al’s Model T and went to Los Angeles, where Al’s sister,
jazz singer Mildred Bailey, helped them get into show business. Within a few weeks of their arrival in Los
Angeles in 1925 Bing and Al were on the vaudeville circuit and singing in movie theaters
throughout California. That’s when Paul Whiteman, who called himself “The
King of Jazz” and led the most popular band in America, heard them. He hired them to sing with his band, which they
joined at the Tivoli Theatre in Chicago in December, 1926.
Crosby used the opportunity to study music with such Whiteman band musicians
as Bix Beiderbecke, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Joe Venuti and Eddie Lang. While waiting to join Whiteman, Crosby and Rinker made their
first record with the Don Clark band. Clark
was a former member of Whiteman’s orchestra, and on October 18, 1926, he recorded
them singing “I’ve Got the Girl,” which was released by Columbia Records
(824-D), with an instrumental piece on the B-side. On
December 22 they cut their first records with Whiteman, “Wistful and Blue” and
“Pretty Lips.” When Whiteman’s orchestra opened at the Paramount in New
York in January, 1927, there was a problem with the duo’s vocals. The theater had no amplification and the orchestra
was drowning out the singers. To overcome
this problem a third singer, Harry Barris, was added to the duo – which became a trio
known as “The Rhythm Boys.” Crosby was surprisingly nonchalant about his work, drank a
lot, and developed a “playboy” image. He
was jailed for drunk driving after an accident which put his date through the windshield
in November, 1929. This was while the movie, The King of Jazz, featuring the Paul Whiteman
Orchestra, was being filmed, and Crosby had to be escorted from jail to the studio
whenever the Rhythm Boys were needed, but he missed out on the chance to take a major solo
role in the movie. Whiteman “released” the Rhythm Boys from
his orchestra in May, 1930. Crosby and the Rhythm Boys trio began singing with the Gus
Arnheim band at the Coconut Grove in Los Angeles. The
Grove did live radio broadcasts and Crosby could be heard throughout California, which
brought increasing crowds to hear him in person. At
the same time Arnheim was pushing Crosby to the front as a soloist, leaving the other two
in the trio to sing backup. On January 19,
1931 Crosby recorded his first solo, “I Surrender Dear,” written by Harry
Barris, and it was a hit. But as Crosby’s solo career began to take off he started
skipping performances at the Grove. This led
the club’s manager to dock his pay, and Crosby walked out in protest, taking the
Rhythm Boys with him. When the club
persuaded the local musician’s union to ban the trio for breach of contract, the
Rhythm Boys dissolved. (They performed
together only once after that, in a July 4, 1943 reunion for the NBC radio broadcast of Paul Whiteman Presents. A excerpt from the program was included on the MCA
anthology on CD, Bing: His Legendary Years.) Part Two of Two: The Solo Years Crosby recorded over 1,700 songs for commercial release,
beginning with “I’ve Got the Girl” (Columbia) in 1926 – and ending in
1977, the year of his death. He recorded in
every one of those 51 years. From 1926
through 1928 he recorded with Paul Whiteman on the Victor label and then on Columbia again
until 1931. From 1931 into 1934 Crosby
recorded for the Brunswick label. But in
1934 Jack Kapp, who had been an executive at Brunswick, started the Decca label and he
signed Crosby to be Decca’s first recording artist.
Crosby recorded exclusively for Decca through 1955, after which he
free-lanced for several record companies, including Frank Sinatra’s Reprise label. The vast majority of Crosby’s recordings were
for Decca, which was purchased by MCA in 1962. When Crosby died he was considered the world’s most
successful singer, in terms of record sales. And
there are currently more than 100 CDs available of his recordings, on a variety of
labels. Crosby’s success was in good measure due to his laconic,
laid-back delivery and his impeccable sense of timing, coupled with that mellow voice. But these gifts and talents would have been of
little value if the recording industry had not undergone a major change just as his career
was beginning. Until 1926 the recording industry used acoustic and
mechanical means to make a master record. Singers
and musicians gathered around a large horn, which funneled the sounds they produced down
to a diaphragm, which vibrated and moved the cutting needle which translated that
acoustical energy into a groove in the wax master recording. But in 1926 the industry changed over to electric microphones
and electrically-driven cutting needles. This made it possible to “close-mike” a
singer, who no longer needed to project or “belt out” – or virtually shout
– over the top of the musicians, as if on stage.
(A similar revolution would soon bring microphones and amplification to the
stage.) And this recording revolution made
possible Crosby’s distinctively soft singing style, which quickly became known as
“crooning.” Crosby’s first
1926 record advertised on its label the fact that it was made electrically, an obvious
selling point. Crosby sang as though he was standing next to you, almost
conversationally. It made for a more intimate
experience. And in Crosby’s wake
other crooners would soon follow – most notably Frank Sinatra, who, as a youthful
singer with the Dorsey Brothers band, would all but wrap himself around the mike stand on
stage. Crosby was a pioneer in the next stage of recording
development as well: tape recording. He was the first major star to make use of this new
recording medium. He used it first to record
and produce his radio show in 1947, and in mid-1949 he began making his Decca recordings
on tape. Until tape, it was almost impossible
to edit a recording. If, in the course of
recording, someone missed a cue or played a wrong note, that “take” had to be
discarded and a new one begun all over again from the beginning. These messed-up disk recordings sometimes included “blow-ups”
from Crosby – a demonstration of his well-known temper – directed at whoever had
messed up on that occasion. Some of these
were not destroyed (as was supposed to be done) but were bootlegged into the hands of
Crosby’s fans. These 78 rpm disks are
now highly valued by collectors. They include
a botched version of “I Wished on the Moon” from 1935, “Wrap Your Troubles
in Dreams” from 1939, and “Crosby Blows His Top” a disk released as “Private
for Decca Officials in N.Y.” in 1940. There
is also a 1950s label, Crosby Blows His Top, devoted to his recorded explosions of temper;
it had a yellow label with black print. Crosby spawned an incredible amount of memorabilia in his 51-year career. A check of eBay revealed over 1,200 items for auction, ranging from publicity photos to sheet music, and including cassettes of his 1940s radio shows. A signed letter was offered on another website for $500. And his music remains widely available on CD – a perfect accompaniment to the holiday season: music to listen to with a loved one while cuddling before a cheery fire in the fireplace. |
|
