MICHAEL FEINSTEIN'S BING COLLECTION

From Michael Feinstein:
"In 1978 while doing research for Ira Gershwin on the RKO films for which the Gershwins had written scores, I stumbled upon a box of old lacquer disks in the RKO Warehouse. I asked the curator Jon Hall about them, and he told me that he was unaware of any such disks in the collection. It was a jumble of files and papers and not well organized. He told me that they had no interest in the recordings and had no desire to keep them. Rather than see them destroyed, I offered to make a tape transfer of the disks if he would give me the originals. Jon was happy to clear out some of the detritus in the warehouse and I departed with a hodgepodge of film-related disks from the 1940s. Some were audition records of film hopefuls, some were orchestral cues, and there were also two 12" glass base lacquer disks of Bing Crosby, one cracked beyond repair and the other not only playable but in miraculously good shape for its fragility. It had no label and simply said "Crosby- fluff" in grease pencil. Upon playing the side I was delighted by the rich sound of Crosby's voice–and also the comment he makes at the end. In The Bells Of Saint Mary's he plays a pious man of the cloth. I wonder if he was wearing a priest's collar when he made this record?"

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MICHAEL FEINSTEIN: DEFENDING BING AND THE GREAT AMERICAN SONGBOOK

Now Michael Feinstein can admit it.

“When I was a teenager in Ohio, I would buy a record and hide it in my shirt as I walked home,” he says.

Feinstein, 55, smiles shyly and shakes his head as he thinks of it. “I was afraid that if any kids saw what I’d bought, they’d ostracize me or make me feel like a fool.”

Those records included songs sung by Sinatra or ones written by the Gershwins. But for the last few decades, Feinstein has been proud to let people know what music he’s always loved.

He’ll share it this Saturday night with New Brunswick audiences at the State Theatre’s annual gala benefit concert. Songs from his recent DVD “The Sinatra Project” will be part of the mix, as well as plenty of songs from Broadway shows.

“And Gershwin, who was the most nominated in this year’s Tony Awards?” he says, eyes gleaming. (Both “Nice Work If You Can Get It,” which uses his music, and “Porgy and Bess” each got 10 nominations.)

Feinstein knows some parents will dutifully bring their children to his concert. “I do play to multigenerational audiences,” he says. “Of course, some of those kids absolutely tune out and are completely bored. That’s because they don’t know how to listen to lyrics. I wish someone would teach a course on ‘How to Listen.’ ”

Actually, Feinstein is doing his part, with his Carmel, Ind.-based Michael Feinstein Great American Songbook Initiative. “To acquaint the younger generation, we’re doing educational outreach, master classes and vocal competitions,” he says. “I know that there are kids all over the world who feel as disenfranchised as I did because they love ‘different’ music.”

Feinstein says he was much more worried about keeping this music alive a quarter century ago, just when he was breaking out as a major artist.

“It was my first New York gig at the Algonquin Hotel,” he recalls. “I looked out and saw so many late middle-aged people at the tables. I thought, ‘The audience who appreciates my music is going to be dead in 20 years.’ I really thought that, and wondered if I’d have a career in 2006.”

Not to worry. He has caught the ear of young people as they aged and matured.

“I don’t think that today’s pop market is going to change and return to ‘my’ music,” he says. “However, I really believe in planting musical seeds. You never know how they’ll grow and who they’ll influence.”

To that end, Feinstein recently started “Song Travels,” a series on National Public Radio. “It’s 50 percent music and 50 percent talk,” he says. “I’ve had on such guests as Liza Minnelli and Bette Midler, who really loves to talk about good music.”

Feinstein says that such exposure is vital. “There was a time when Bing Crosby was the No. 1 record-seller in the world, the No. 1 radio-star in the world and the No. 1 film star in the world,” he says, with more than a little awe in his voice.

Now comes the sadness: “Today, aside from ‘White Christmas,’ so few people know who he is,” he says.

Feinstein believes he knows why. “When I was a kid,” he says, “my whole family would sit around the TV and watch those variety shows. Now those shows are long gone, but even if they weren’t, a lot of families wouldn’t be able to make the time and sit and watch them as a unit. That’s why it’s important that we all be together in one large space to share the music — like the State Theatre on Saturday night.”

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MICHAEL FEINSTEIN'S BING APPRECIATION

There’s no more important subset of American popular singers than the crooner, whose smooth, mellow sound is “easy listening” in the best sense of the phrase. Crooners require no effort on the part of the listener, who can just sit back and spend some quality time with a good voice, some nice tunes, and terrific arrangements. Bing Crosby was the king of the crooners. His sleepy-eyed, “buh-buh-buh-boo,” pipe-in-mouth, hat-down-low style of singing lasted for almost fifty years and we never grew tired of it. Bing was always professional, always busy, filling up every spare moment with either singing or swinging―a golf club, that is.

Crosby was a transitional figure but also his own man and most of all, a great talent. Whereas Jolson wore his emotions on his sleeve, his style stripped bare and without nuance, the next great singer, Bing Crosby, kept his personality in check. He gave us nothing to make us cry, nothing to make us laugh―but he could draw a big smile, a pang of nostalgia, a wistfulness. Crosby dealt in emotions lite, keeping the audience entertained, singing as if he were singing just for you, and all without offering a clue as to who he was or what he thought. We bought it all. He asked little of us and we asked little of him.

Even Bing’s friends and family couldn’t tell what was going on behind his façade. Dogs wag their tails when happy, snarl when they’re mad. Cats flick their tails when they’re annoyed. Bing had his own set of signals and we were forced to look for them in order to discover the person underneath the performance.

For Maxine Andrews, it was his hat: “He could be very moody, and when he came into the recording studio we could always tell what mood he was in by looking at his hat. If his hat was square on his head, you didn't kid around with him. But if it was back a little bit, sort of jaunty, then you could have a ball.”

His own wife, Kathryn, searched for clues in his dress: “People who didn't know thought Bing had difficulty expressing affection. Not at all. As I was to learn much later, the secret was in that top button on the pajamas. If it was fastened, it was going to be a quiet read-in-bed and lights-out-at-10 p.m.-after-chaste-prayers [night]. If it was unbuttoned, however, watch out.”

Hats and pajamas as the windows to a man’s soul? Some claimed he was self-absorbed but perhaps he was just introspective. That’s why Johnny Burke was the perfect lyricist for Crosby, his work full of down-home homilies, the joys of living simply and simply living, the notion that money can’t buy happiness.

Though Crosby was one of the richest men in Hollywood, and certainly enjoyed his wealth, he was never pretentious. As Wilfred Hyde-White reported, “Sinatra would turn up with three or four Karmen Ghias. The doors would open and bodyguards would march down. But Bing would turn up in a little car, stop at the gate for his dressing-room key, and then park it himself! The difference was rather marvelous.”

His image, relaxed and easy-going, was carefully controlled. James Cagney noted, “Here he had been to all appearances perfectly loose and relaxed, but not at all. He was giving everything he had in every note he sang, and the apparent effortlessness was a part of his very hard work.”

We all know about the great friendship between Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. They mock-feuded, appeared on each other’s radio and television broadcasts, enjoyed a long relationship on film in the “road” movies, and popped up in cameos in each other’s film and stage vehicles. They honestly enjoyed each other’s company. They clicked. And yet, there’s no record of Bing and Bob ever getting together for a vacation, let alone a meal, in all their years together.

Perhaps he was the only one to truly know himself, but that’s true of most of us. Still, it doesn’t diminish one of the greatest singers of the 20th century. A man who brought us out of the acoustic age and into the electronic. Jolson could take or leave a microphone, his actions meant everything. Crosby embraced the microphone and used it to draw us into the music. He refined Jolson’s emotional peaks and smoothed out the edges on Jolson’s need for approval. He led the way to Frank Sinatra, a complex man who let us into his id. Crosby was a transitional figure but also his own man and most of all, a great talent...

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