CD REVIEW: BING CROSBY - RARITIES FROM HOLLYWOOD

Here is a review from the pen of the great Scott Yanow from the publication The Syncopated Times...

There has never been a shortage of Bing Crosby recordings that were readily available. The most popular (and one of the most versatile) singers of the 1930s and ’40s whether on records, in films, on the radio and in live performances, all other male singers (including Sinatra) during the time period were, at best, competing for the #2 spot.

The two-CD set Rarities From The Hollywood Studios 1933-1959, which was compiled by Crosby fanatic John Newton from his collection, has its good (CD #2) and bad (CD#1) points. The first disc can be thought of as an endless infomercial for Crosby’s movies in the 1930s. The initial transcription is actually for a film (42nd Street) that Bing was not in. However in 1933 he had recorded two songs from the movie (“You’re Getting To Be A Habit With Me” and “Young And Healthy”) and excerpts from those recordings are used on that brief commercial. The other seven tracks on the first disc (three are around 4 1/2 minutes apiece while the last four clock in at 12-14 1/2 minutes each) are long advertisements for various Crosby movies. There are brief excerpts of Bing singing some of the songs from the films, bits of dialogue from the movies, and plenty of endless cheerleading for the movies by the announcers. These commercials were made for the radio with the goal of boosting the attendance of such then-current films as College Humor, We’re Not Dressing, Here Is My Heart, Double Or Nothing, Paris Honeymoon, and Rhythm On The River. It all gets boring very fast and few will want to hear this twice.

The second CD is a different story altogether. Dating from 1934-58, one gets to hear Crosby performing songs originally recorded for the movies that include alternate versions, lengthier renditions before they were cut for the films, numbers that were discarded and not used at all, and some of his singing at rehearsals. None of this music was available before. Some of the performances are jazz-oriented while others are ballads with strings. Among the highlights are “Takes Two To Make A Bargain,” “Smarty,” “It’s Always You,” an alternate rendition of “By The Light Of The Silvery Moon,” “Say It Isn’t So,” and “Blue Moon.”

Bing Crosby fans will find much of value on the second CD which I wish had been released by itself...

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COMING SOON: BING CROSBY WINTER WARMER BEER

Bing Crosby Winter Warmer Returns!

The holiday season is here and we’re bringing back a fan favorite... our White Christmas Winter Warmer!

The holiday season is here and we’re bringing back a fan favorite... our White Christmas Winter Warmer! Inspired by Bing Crosby’s timeless classic, this winter brew pairs perfectly with chilly evenings by the fire or joyful gatherings with friends and family. With its rich, malty sweetness and warm spice notes, it’s crafted to keep your spirits bright throughout the season.

Whether you're enjoying it alongside a holiday meal or simply sipping while wrapped up in your favorite blanket, this delightful brew adds an extra touch of joy. Rush to the nearest store and bring home a taste of Christmas magic. Cheers to a warm and wonderful holiday season!

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PHOTOS OF THE DAY: BING AND KATHRYN CROSBY

Here are some great candid shots of Bing and his second wife Kathryn Crosby...

REMEMBERING MITZI GAYNOR (1931-2024)

 I am sad to have to report that Mitzi Gaynor, Bing's co-star in 1956's Anything Goes has passed away. She appeared with Bing in that movie and on television. She was a talented all around entertainer and will be missed...

AUDIO ASPIRIN: I'LL BE SEEING YOU

BING: 47 YEARS LATER

It has been 47 years since Bing Crosby died now. I was three. Some people my age only know Bing as the Christmas carol singer if at all. Bing in my fifty years has meant so much more to me. Bing is what brought my Grandfather, and I together. Our love of music not only helped me to have a good relationship with my Grandfather, but it helped me to overcome a lot in my early years.

Bing to me represented a simpler time in the world. It was not neccessarily a better time, but a more laid back and relaxing time. 2024 is so busy and hectic, that I still listen to Bing to relax me. After a long day of work stress, nothing soothes me more than to listen to Bing Crosby on the way home. If more people listened to Bing that I think there would be a drop in anxiety, stress, and maybe even violence! 

In 2024, Bing Crosby still means the world to me. Yes Bing has been dead since 1977, but his memory is very much alive to me!

AUDIO ASPIRIN: BECAUSE OF YOU

BING'S DISCOGRAPHY: SEPTEMBER 27, 1929

 Here is what Bing was recording on this day in the early years of his career some 95 years ago...

Date: 9/27/29
Location: Union Square, New York, NY
Label: COLUMBIA (US)
INSTRUMENTAL GROUP


Bing Crosby (voc), Charles Margulis (tr), Chester (Chet) Hazlett (cl), Roy Bargy (pno), Matty Malneck (vln)

a. W149066-3 Can't We Be Friends? (Paul James, Kay Swift) - 2:59
PROPER RECORDS (UK) CDP1233 — BING CROSBY: IT'S EASY TO REMEMBER (The Rhythm Boy) (2001)

NAXOS (UK) CD8120697 — THE EARLIEST BING CROSBY Vol 2 Rhythm King 1927 - 1931 (2003)

b. W149067-3 Gay Love (Sidney Clare, Oscar Levant) - 3:00

Both titles on:
CBS SPECIAL PRODUCTS (US) (CBS) CDA2 201 A203 — THE BING CROSBY STORY Volume 1: The Early Jazz Years 1928-1932 Disc 2 (1990)
JONZO (UK) CDJZCD-07 — THE CHRONOLOGICAL BING CROSBY VOLUME 07 (1999)
COLLECTORS' CHOICE (US) CDCCM-216-2 — LOST COLUMBIA SIDES: 1928-1933 (CD2) (2001)

REMEMBERING KATHRYN CROSBY (1933-2024)

Kathryn Crosby, a 1950s Hollywood starlet who gave up her film career to marry Bing Crosby, the Oscar-winning actor, radio star and mellifluous “White Christmas” crooner, and as his widow became chief protector of his legacy, died Sept. 20 at her home in Hillsborough, Calif. She was 90.

The death was announced in a statement by publicist B. Harlan Boll, who did not note a cause.

Throughout her childhood and adolescence, Kathryn Grant — as she was then known — dominated the Texas beauty contest circuit between Houston and Corpus Christi. A 5-foot-3, auburn-haired stunner, she was crowned “Golden Girl of the Texas Baseball League,” “Miss Buccaneer-Navy” (dressed in pirate motif) and “Queen of the Houston Rodeo and Fat Stock Exposition,” for which she was teased among rivals and friends alike as “Miss Fat Stock.”

She had met Crosby in 1953, a year after she was named first runner-up in the Miss Texas pageant and landed a Paramount studios contract. She was 20 at the time and was on the studio lot, breathlessly ferrying a load of petticoats to the wardrobe department, when she rushed past Crosby, then 50 and a recent widower. He was leaning against the doorjamb of his dressing room, casually whistling a tune.

"Howdy, Tex,” he asked with bemusement. “What’s your hurry?”

Crosby had been a box-office juggernaut on the lot for two decades, an audience favorite not only for his vaudeville-style “Road” movies with Bob Hope but also for his Oscar-winning turn as a singing priest in “Going My Way” (1944). In her spare time between walk-on roles, the starstruck young Kathryn filed dispatches for newspapers back home under the title “Texas Gal in Hollywood” and soon returned to Crosby to request an interview.

“You a reporter?” Crosby asked.

“I’m a columnist,” she said.

“The dickens you are,” he replied. “I didn’t know they came so pretty.”

Crosby agreed to the interview, then invited her to tea and later to dinner. She described an instant and mutual infatuation between herself and Crosby, who exuded a languorous sex appeal with his piercing blue eyes and the virile romantic baritone voice that had sold hundreds of millions of records, among them “Please” and “Pennies From Heaven.”

Their courtship lasted nearly four complicated years. Crosby disappeared from her life for months at a time and jilted her twice, only to emerge with reinvigorated ardor. As he pursued other on-set romances, including with actresses Grace Kelly and Inger Stevens, Kathryn was determined to focus on her own pursuit of stardom.

After being dropped by Paramount, she was picked up by Columbia studios and promoted as a versatile leading lady. She had a featured role as a card dealer in the anti-corruption drama “The Phenix City Story” (1955) and co-starred opposite Audie Murphy in the western “The Guns of Fort Petticoat,” Jack Lemmon in the military comedy “Operation Mad Ball” and Tony Curtis in the drama “Mister Cory,” all in 1957.

She was a princess in “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad” (1958), a trapeze artist in “The Big Circus” (1959) and, in perhaps her best performance, a surprise witness in “Anatomy of a Murder” (1959), holding her own in a cross-examination showdown with a slick attorney played by George C. Scott.

By the time Bing Crosby eloped with her to Las Vegas in 1957, Kathryn, a Methodist, had converted to Catholicism at his insistence but extracted a promise that she could continue her career after their marriage. But he soon reneged, preferring she stay at home as he wound down into semi-retirement and managed his many business interests and investments, ranging from baseball teams to thoroughbred horses to real estate.

She ultimately went along. Mrs. Crosby later said she wished to give her husband a life vastly different from his anguished and thoroughly dysfunctional first marriage, to actress Dixie Lee, whose alcoholism left him so despairing that he often stayed away from home, leaving her and his children to fend for themselves.

By the early 1960s, Bing and Kathryn had left Southern California and settled in a 24-room Norman-style mansion in Hillsborough, an upscale suburb of San Francisco. She had three children with Bing — including actress Mary Frances Crosby, whose character shot J.R. on the TV series “Dallas” — and spent five years completing a degree in registered nursing. She also was a public-school teacher, host of a morning TV talk show in San Francisco, and the author of a rosy 1967 memoir (“Bing and Other Things”).

She modeled clothes for designer Jean Louis, did occasional summer stock with Bing’s approval, accompanied her husband and children on bird-hunting and fishing expeditions and helped him manage his constellation of properties across the West and in Mexico. She vivaciously sang duets with Bing on TV specials, including his annual Christmas show, and appeared with their children in Minute Maid frozen orange juice commercials, a product Bing endorsed.

As a more contented spouse and father, Bing spent a great deal more time with his second family than he had with his first, Mrs. Crosby said. Nevertheless, she said, he could be a controlling and mercurial perfectionist at home, even as he tried to live up to the laid-back Mr. Lucky persona he had long cultivated — the charming and carefree all-American fellow who just happened to have a voice of peerless emotional resonance.

“He doesn’t exactly lose his temper in the traditional way,” Mrs. Crosby told an interviewer. “He just gets very quiet. That’s when I start wondering what I’ve done. You see, Bing will never say what is bothering him.”

With her nursing credentials, she looked closely after Bing’s well-being amid health setbacks, including after he plummeted 20 feet from a sound stage in March 1977 while rehearsing a TV show, seriously injuring his back. “She really took care of him,” said jazz critic Gary Giddins, an authoritative Bing biographer. Because she was emotionally stable and the family disciplinarian, he added, “She also allowed him to be the kind of father he had not been in the first marriage.”

In October 1977, he was on a golfing trip in Spain with friends when he died suddenly, at age 74 after a heart attack, just after completing a round of play.

Mrs. Crosby gradually restarted her acting career, mostly with touring theater companies and also in a cabaret act that paid tribute to Bing.

To tell her own story, Mrs. Crosby wrote “My Life With Bing” (1983) and “My Last Years with Bing” (2002). Of all the roles she would play — on screen and stage and in private life — she said there was one that made all the others possible. “I want you to understand,” she once told People magazine, “that my position in this world rests on being Mrs. Bing Crosby.”

NEWSPAPER CLIPPINGS: BING MELLOW AS EVER

 Here is an interesting clipping from August 11, 1974 - when Bing missed a performance because of surgery...