SWINGING INTO STARDOM - THE EARLY YEARS OF BING CROSBY

Here is a radio documentary I created called Swinging Into Stardom: The Early Years Of Bing Crosby. It's been almost 100 years now since Bing made his first record I've Got The Girl, and I hope this documentary captures and honors those early years...

SPOTLIGHT ON AL RINKER

A forgotten player in the early years of Bing was Al Rinker. Rinker was an American musician who began his career as a teen performing with Bing Crosby in the early 1920s in Spokane, Washington in various musical groups. In 1925 the pair moved on to Los Angeles, eventually forming the Rhythm Boys trio with singer/songwriter/pianist Harry Barris.

Barris wrote the songs "Mississippi Mud", "I Surrender, Dear", and "Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams" among others. The singing group worked with Paul Whiteman's Big Band for three years. They went out on their own for a year until Crosby effectively dissolved the group to go solo. The Rhythm Boys were filmed for the Paul Whiteman movie The King of Jazz (1930) singing "Mississippi Mud", "So the Bluebirds and the Blackbirds Got Together", "A Bench in the Park", and "Happy Feet".

According to a filmed interview of Rinker, Crosby performed the first two weeks on his first film while on daytime work release from jail after crashing his car into a telephone pole while driving drunk. After the Rhythm Boys broke up, they reunited only once, to appear together on the Paul Whiteman Presents radio broadcast on July 4, 1943.

In 1952, a song for which Rinker wrote the music with lyrics by Floyd Huddleston, "You Can't Do Wrong Doin' Right", appeared in the films Push-Button Kitty and The Affairs of Dobie Gillis. He also wrote the song "Everybody Wants to Be a Cat" also with Floyd Huddleston for the Disney animated children's movie The Aristocats (1970). Rinker had also written the songs for the MGM musicial The Duchess Of Idaho starring Van Johnson in 1950.

Rinker was born on December 20, 1907 in Tekoa, Washington; his mother, Josephine, was an enrolled member of the Coeur d'Alene Tribe and a devout Roman Catholic. He and his siblings grew up on the Coeur d'Alene Indian reservation near DeSmet, Idaho.

It was a musical family: their father, Charles, played fiddle and called square dances, and their mother played piano every evening after supper. His younger brother Charles Rinker became a lyricist who worked frequently with composer Gene de Paul. Rinker married Elizabeth Neuberger on October 25, 1938.

Their older sister Mildred, under her married name of Mildred Bailey, had embarked on a musical career in Los Angeles before Rinker and Crosby became known. She became a well-known jazz singer after the Rhythm Boys arranged for Paul Whiteman to "discover" her singing at a party; he hired her to sing with his band. For a time she was known as "Mrs. Swing."

Julie Rinker is Al Rinker's daughter. Julie Rinker was one of Dean Martin's original Dean's Girls on The Dean Martin Show. Julie Rinker is also the female voice of the Three's Company Theme Song. Al died suddenly at on June 11, 1982 at the age of 74. In later years, Al appeared to be bitter towards to Bing Crosby. He seemed to say that Bing forgot his Rhythm Boy roots and discarded his former partners. Bing did give numerous movie roles to Harry Barris, and he recorded a couple of Rinker's sons, so whether or not the bitterness was deserved is beyond me. Al Rinker was talented in his own right, and he was a part of an exciting time in popular music...

COMING SOON: KING OF JAZZ TO DVD

Made during the early years of the movie musical, this exuberant revue was one of the most extravagant, eclectic, and technically ambitious Hollywood productions of its day. 

Starring the bandleader Paul Whiteman, then widely celebrated as the King of Jazz, the film drew from Broadway variety shows of the time to present a spectacular array of sketches, performances by such acts as the Rhythm Boys (featuring a young Bing Crosby), and orchestral numbers overseen by Whiteman himself (including a larger-than-life rendition of George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”)—all lavishly staged by veteran theater director John Murray Anderson and beautifully shot in early Technicolor.

Long available only in incomplete form, King of Jazz appears here newly restored to its original glory, offering a fascinating snapshot of the way mainstream American popular culture viewed itself at the dawn of the 1930s.

Disc Features:

-New 4K digital restoration by Universal Pictures, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
-New audio commentary featuring jazz and film critic Gary Giddins, music and cultural critic Gene Seymour, and musician and bandleader Vince Giordano
-New introduction by Giddins
-New interview with musician and pianist Michael Feinstein
-Four new video essays by authors and archivists James Layton and David Pierce on the development and making of King of Jazz
-Deleted scenes and alternate opening-title sequence
-All Americans, a 1929 short film featuring a version of the “Melting Pot” number that was restaged for the finale of King of Jazz
-I Know Everybody and Everybody’s Racket, a 1933 short film featuring Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra
-Two Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons from 1930, featuring music and animation from King of Jazz

MORE DETAILS HERE

THE MOVIE THAT ALMOST ENDED BING'S CAREER

Legendary crooner Bing Crosby was offered a big solo number in his film debut. Instead, he ended up in jail for driving under the influence and getting into a car wreck during Prohibition.

“King of Jazz’’ (1930), which will be restored, is a super-lavish color musical revue presided over by the film’s namesake, Crosby’s then-employer, famed bandleader Paul Whiteman.

Crosby appears in four numbers with early partners Harry Barris and Al Rinker — they were jointly billed as the Rhythm Boys — and sings alone over the opening credits. The crooner was also assigned a solo production number, “Song of the Dawn.’’

That didn’t happen, partly because Whiteman arranged for his performers to all purchase discounted Fords — each including a spare tire on the rear emblazoned with a caricature of Whiteman — to drive around Los Angeles.

On Nov. 16, 1929, Crosby took time out from rehearsing his solo to attend a college football game.

“There was quite a shindig after the game in our studio bungalow, involving tippling, but not to excess,’’ Crosby recalled in an article he wrote for the Hollywood Reporter in 1955.

The accident occurred while Crosby was dropping a female guest off at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with his convertible.

“Bing made a left turn into an oncoming car with such force that he and his passenger were knocked over the windshield and onto the pavement,’’ writes Crosby biographer Gary Giddins. “He was fine, but the woman was bloody and unconscious.’’Modal Trigger

Police arrested Crosby and the other driver, “who in Bing’s account was ‘more drunk than he was,’ ” Giddins told the Los Angeles Times in 2007. Crosby “felt it was an injustice,’’ Giddins said.

A week later, Crosby showed up for his court appearance in golf attire, infuriating the judge, who sentenced the crooner to 60 days in the slammer. But the accident was never reported in the newspapers at the time and, after he became a star, Crosby’s arrest and court records vanished, the LA Times says.

Despite an incident that film historian David Stenn says “could have well ended Bing’s career,’’ Crosby went on to lasting fame and fortune as a singer and actor, recording the all-time classic “White Christmas’’ and winning a Best Actor Oscar for “Going My Way’’ in 1945.

Two decades before his death in 1977, the beloved performer came clean about the accident and was philosophical about losing his big number in “King of Jazz,’’ which went to singer John Boles.

“[Boles] had a bigger voice and a better delivery for that kind of song than I had, and I often wondered what might have happened to me if I had sung it,’’ Crosby wrote. “I might have flopped with the song. I might have been cut out of the picture. I might never have been given another crack at a song in any picture.”

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THE END OF THE RHYTHM BOYS

After leaving the Whiteman Orchestra in May of 1930 the Rhythm Boys began singing with the Gus Arnheim band at the Cocoanut Grove in the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. Arnheim began pushing Bing to the forefront as a soloist, and on Jan. 19, 1931, Bing recorded what was to become his first credited solo hit, I Surrender Dear, written by Harry Barris and backed by the Arnheim Orchestra.

The Grove had its own broadcast equipment, and Bing's voice could be heard throughout California. Increasingly crowds came to the Grove to hear Bing solo, and the Rhythm Boys as a group receded to the background. As Bing's solo career began to rise, he began skipping performances at the Grove, and this behavior led the manager to dock his pay. Crosby walked out in protest, and took the Rhythm Boys with him. The manager persuaded the local musicians' union to ban the trio for breach of contract, and the Rhythm Boys dissolved.

The Rhythm Boys performed together only one more time, July 4, 1943, on an NBC radio broadcast hosted by Paul Whiteman., "Paul Whiteman Presents." A musical excerpt of this program was included on the MCA CD anthology Bing: His Legendary Years. The entire program is available from collectors...

ORIGINAL STORY BY STEVE LEWIS

PHOTOS OF THE DAY: EVEN MORE CANDID BING

I have been a Bing Crosby fan for over 35 years now, and what amazes me is the wealth of pictures out there featuring Der Bingle. Now with the internet, everyday I find pictures of the great crooner that I haven't seen before. Here are just a few more candid pics of Bing you might not have seen yet:

With The Rhythm Boys

With a Frank Sinatra fan

BING: THE FIRST CROONER

Bing Crosby – The First Crooner
The Early Years

Bing Crosby died more than 30 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.)

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BING AND THE RINKER SIBLINGS

The music careers of a couple of the twentieth century’s most significant singing stars -- Bing “The King of the Crooners” Crosby and Mildred “That Princess of Rhythm” Bailey -- are so intertwined that their stories are perhaps best told as one. Those two innovative Jazz Age vocalists both went on to conquer the music world in big ways, but their shared beginnings on the fringes of the Spokane, Washington, Prohibition Era speakeasy jazz scene were quite humble.

From playing drums for the high school’s jazz band, Crosby went on to Gonzaga University where he fell in with a local dance combo called the Dizzy Seven. That combo played high-school dances and illicit bathtub-gin-fueled parties for a few months before Crosby was lured away by the Musicaladers, another local band with a pianist/bandleader, Al Rinker, whose older sister, Mildred Rinker, happened to be a sales-clerk at Bailey’s Music Shop. And it was there that the guys were exposed to all the hot records by such jazz favorites as the original Dixieland Band, McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, the Memphis Five, and even Vic Meyer’s dance band from Seattle.

For the next couple years the Musicaladers performed at the Manito Park Social Club, the Casino Theater, the Pekin Café, Lareida’s Dance Pavilion, and then at Spokane’s Clemmer Theater where a new manager soon dropped the band in favor of just a “novelty” duo: Rinker on piano and Crosby singing, dancing, and jiving.

That “Vo-do-de-o Stuff”

Meanwhile, Rinker’s sister -- who’d adopted the stage name of “Mildred Bailey” -- had become a minor sensation in Los Angeles where she “was singing the blues nightly in the city’s most popular speakeasy, the Silver Grill.” Like Crosby, she too had shown an early aptitude for music, playing the family piano throughout her childhood. But then, after their mother passed away, she was sent to live with an aunt in Seattle. There as a teenager she earned an income playing in silent-movie houses and demonstrating sheet music for customers at Woolworth’s Department Store. Upon returning to Spokane (and while working at Baileys) she got her first gig playing at the town’s hippest speakeasy, Charlie Dale’s, and soon headed off to pursue a quest for fame and fortune in Hollywood.

Inspired by Bailey’s easy success, Crosby and Rinker left Spokane on October 15, 1925, in an old 1916 Model-T Ford and with high hopes of following her path to success. But their path to Hollywood included a brief visit to the coast. According to Crosby: “Our first stop was Seattle. We wanted to hear Jackie Souders’ band at the Butler Hotel. We’d heard him on the radio and we’d met him when he played in Spokane.” Upon arrival in Seattle the boys were introduced to both Souder and, apparently, another top band-leader Vic Meyers (who was often based at the town’s swankiest speakeasy, the Rose Room of the Butler Hotel). Various conflicting accounts suggest that both witnessed the duo’s audition.

Crosby himself once recalled that it Souders who “gave us an audition and then put us on at the Butler over a week end when the place was filled with University of Washington kids. The songs and arrangements we did were mostly fast-rhythm songs and I sang a couple of solos. ... We got a good reception, and we could have stayed there a while, working a night or two a week, but we had heading south on our minds.”

Interestingly, both Souders' and Meyers' recollections of that day differed from that seemingly rosy account by the young singer whose mumbly vocal approach would later be hailed as the “crooner” style. A reporter with The Seattle Times later interviewed the band-leaders and wrote that Meyers witnessed the fateful audition when the unknown “jug-eared young baritone auditioned for a soloist’s job. He had a nice bouncy style and Meyers was impressed. But John Savage, hotel proprietor, took Meyers aside and said: "Can the kid sing a ballad?" Meyers asked "the kid" to sing a ballad. It came out with the same bouncy boo-boo-boo sound. Savage shook his head in a "no-dice" motion.” Souders concurred saying “We all thought they were pretty good, but the hotel owner, the late John E. Savage, said he didn’t like all that "vo-do-de-o stuff" and wouldn’t hire them.”

Either way -- hired or fired -- the duo gassed up their jalopy and continued southbound. Legend holds that they also played for a week at a Tacoma theater and “in several speakeasies at Portland and San Francisco en route” -- finally making it nearly to Hollywood before their engine blew up and Mildred had to drive out towards Bakersfield, California, to rescue them. Wanting to introduce them to the bright lights and big city action of Hollywood, Bailey first took her brother and his musical partner to the Silver Grill where they watched her perform, and then she worked to get them an audition with the Fanchon and Marco theatrical company who booked a circuit of nearly 40 West Coast theaters. Hired, the duo worked that circuit a few times and then were signed to appear in the Morrisey Music Hall Revue, a show created and financed by a highly successful former-Seattle-based song-writer, Arthur Freed.

It was on October 18, 1926 -- just a year after leaving Spokane -- that the guys recorded their debut disc (“I’ve Got The Girl”) with Don Clarke and his Biltmore Hotel Orchestra for a big-time label, Columbia Records. Soon after, they were discovered by a New York band-leader, Paul “The King of Jazz” Whiteman -- and with Harry Barris joining the act as a second pianist, the trio became Paul Whiteman’s Rhythm Boys. The following year Whiteman and the boys cut a record (“Wistful and Blue” / “Pretty Lips”) that became a smash hit, which led to Crosby cutting a solo disc, 1927’s “Muddy Water.”

In 1929, Rinker was able to return all the favors by helping out his sister when she threw a house party. He invited his boss, and when Whiteman heard Bailey sing a song he hired her on the spot. And with that hiring, Whiteman became the first national-level orchestra leader to feature a female vocalist -- a historic moment that soon caused “other dance bands in the copycat fashion of show business” to add “female singers too.” That same year -- and now billed as “That Princess of Rhythm” -- Bailey cut her debut recording, “What Kind O’ Man Is You,” for Columbia.

It was in 1930 -- and just after concluding a string of concerts at Seattle’s Civic Auditorium, the Olympic Hotel’s Spanish Ballroom, and in Portland at Cole McElroy’s Spanish Ballroom and the KOIN radio studios in the New Heathman Hotel -- that Whiteman cut the Rhythm Boys loose. He’d begun to feel disenchanted with his new stars -- especially Crosby, who he thought goofed-off too much. Whiteman criticized the duo for always chasing girls and wanting to play golf. That the guys had recently started hanging out in Harlem with black stars like Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington -- and reports that Crosby had taken up reefer smoking with Louis Armstrong -- probably didn’t help matters.

Then, right in the middle of filming The King of Jazz movie, Crosby got sentenced to 30 days in jail on a drunk-driving charge, missed his shot at making a solo appearance in the film, and angered his boss. When Whiteman headed back to New York, the Rhythm Boys were left behind.

Meanwhile, in 1932 Bailey debuted “Ol’ Rockin’ Chair’s Got Me” on a Chicago-based live broadcast of Whiteman’s weekly Old Gold radio show, and the tune sparked a public response that was immediate and overwhelming. A studio recording of the tune became such a huge hit that Bailey was ever after known as the “Rockin’ Chair Lady.” The record also made significant jazz history as “the first recording by a 'girl singer' with a big band, an innovation that would set the pattern for the swing era.” Bailey also gained attention by recording tunes with the same top players who backed Billie Holiday’s classic sessions -- and plenty of people took notice of her trail-blazing ways when she began fronting an all-black combo, Mildred Bailey and Her Oxford Browns. Bailey also married jazzman, Red Norvo, they became known as “Mr. and Mrs. Swing,” and his combo backed her on a series of fine hits prior to Bailey’s death in 1951.

Since then, Bailey has been acknowledged by music historians variously as: “one of the most dynamic musicians of the swing era,” “a fine singer ... with perfect intonation and pitch. Her interpretation of lyrics on ballads was spellbinding, and she was superb at up-tempo tunes, where her knowledge of harmonics was utilized to sing variations on the melodic theme that were years ahead of her time,” a stylistic innovator who had “directly influenced the vocal style of legendary singers such as Bing Crosby, Tony Bennett and Billie Holiday,” “the first non-black female singer to be accepted in jazz and the first female big-band vocalist,” and with “the possible exception of Billie Holiday (who could even be considered Bailey's own discovery), Bailey was the most consistent and prolific female jazz singer of the ‘30s. ... No understanding of pop and jazz singing can be considered complete without factoring in Mildred Bailey. She is one of the essential missing links of American music.”

And the saga of Crosby and the Rinker siblings is one of the great musical “missing links” in Pacific Northwest jazz history...

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THE HISTORY OF THE RHYTHM BOYS

Bing Crosby and Al Rinker had been together in a Jazz band in Spokane, Washington while in college. The band was so popular that the two dropped out of college and drove Rinker's Model T to Los Angeles where Rinker's sister, Mildred Bailey, who was a Jazz singer was working. Shortly after their arrival in Los Angeles they landed a gig on the vaudeville circuit, as a vocal act. Some members of Paul Whiteman's Orchestra, caught their act and recommended them to Whiteman who hired them in October of 1926.

While waiting to join Whiteman's Orchestra they made their first record "I've Got the Girl" with Don Clark's Orchestra ( (a former member of Whiteman's Orchestra) at The Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles (506 South Grand Ave.). Bing and Al then joined the Whiteman Orchestra in Chicago, where they made their first records with Whiteman. At first, things didn't go well for Crosby and Rinker. Whiteman's audience didn't like them and the theatre manager where they were playing at the time asked that they be dropped from the act, but rather than drop them, Whiteman added a young singer and song writer, Harry Barris to the act. The act was billed as the Rhythm Boys. The trio sang in three part harmony with both Rinker and Barris playing piano. Barris wrote a song called "Mississippi Mud" which became a hit with the Whiteman Orchesta and featured Bix Beiderbecke on cornet.

After awhile, Whiteman and Crosby were not getting along. Bing drank a lot had landed in jail a couple of times. He missed some of the filming of Whiteman's movie "King Of Jazz," after being involved in an auto accident while driving drunk. Whiteman pulled some strings and got Bing released from the jail. Crosby was escorted in handcuffs to the studio by a police officer whenever he was scheduled to appear in the film. After the movie was completed in 1930, Whiteman fired them. The Rhythm Boys then joined the Gus Arnheim Orchestra at the Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles. Bing was featured more and more as a soloist, and in 1931, Bing recorded his first solo hit, I Surrender, Dear with Gus Arnheim and his Cocoanut Grove Orchestra.

Radio broadcasts from the Cocoanut Grove made Bing a star, but his wild ways caused him to start missing performances, and Crosby's pay was docked. The Rhythm Boys quit playing at the club, but the local musicians' union banned them from playing, which caused the Rhythm Boys to call it quits. Bing's solo career soared after the Rhythm Boys broke up. Crosby went on to become one of the biggest stars of Twentieth century. The Rhythm Boys performed only one more time, in 1943, on a radio broadcast called Paul Whiteman Presents...

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THE EARLY JAZZ SIDE OF BING

Here is an article I wrote, nearly 10 years ago! It appeared in IN TUNE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE in March of 2001... THE EARLY JAZZ SIDE OF BING CROSBY - by David Lobosco In the fifty years that Bing Crosby made records, he recorded just about every conceivable genre of music from cowboy songs to sacred hymns. Bing was comfortable singing any type of song, but he seemed to be most at home singing jazz. Growing up in Spokane, Washington he was a long way from the sights and sounds of New Orleans. However, during Bing's formative years he soaked up the music of Kid Ory, Jelly Roll Morton, and Louis Armstrong. His early efforts showed how Bing had absorbed the jazz atmosphere that he found so musically stimulating. Those early efforts on vinyl included his stint with the Paul Whiteman orchestra. The Whiteman organization contained some of jazz's foremost pioneers like: the Dorseys, Eddie Lang, Joe Venuti, and Bix Biederbecke. Bing especially followed the cornet stylings of Biederbecke, and Bix not only became an idol of Bing's but also a drinking buddy during their time with Whiteman. Bing's first recording with the band was in late 1926, but it wasn't until March of 1927 that he got to record his first solo vocal on vinyl. The song, MUDDY WATER, is now considered a jazz classic, but to most Crosby fans it bears little distinction. For pure historic reason alone it should be highly valued. Whiteman gave the song to Bing after being impressed with Bing's work. For the next couple of years however, Bing mostly just waxed discs as a part of the Rhythm Boys and not much on his own. That would change though in January of 1929 when Bing was loaned out to the newly formed Dorsey Brothers Orchestra to record a few songs. One song that brought the young Crosby wider recognition was MY KINDA LOVE. Arranged by a very young Glenn Miller, the song was unexceptional. Fortunately, the Crosby vocal does the song more than justice. Later that year, Bing recorded one of the best records with Whiteman and the Rhythm Boys. Written by Leo Robin and Richard Whiting, the song is practically a theme song for French singer Maurice Chevalier. However, LOUISE is undoubtedly the Rhythm Boys' at their wild best. If Bing takes centre stage, his two colleagues also have very good parts and it amply demonstrates all the different facets of Bing's emerging personality - scat, comedy, harmony, and masterful solo singing. In mid 1930, the Rhythm Boys left the Whiteman organization and latched on to the popular Gus Arnheim orchestra. The trio made a few records with the band before it became obvious that Bing was emerging as the star. The trio broke up in 1931, and Bing stayed on with Arnheim as a solo singer. Bing made two very good recordings while he was with Arnheim. The first recording was the jaunty ONE MORE TIME. The opening bars are a true indication of what follows. The orchestra announces their presence and Crosby almost literally bursts upon the scene with his best solo jazz vocal to date. The other recording is not as well recorded, but I'M GONNA GET YOU bears recognition since it marks his last recording as a band vocalist. The limited range of the song seems to irk Bing into thrusting beyond its restraints, and Bing's final note is almost inaudible. In June of 1931, Bing recorded the highly popular song I FOUND A MILLION DOLLAR BABY for the first time with a studio orchestra. The significance of the recording has never truly been realized. This recording marks his first up-tempo song as a solo artist. The song is a joyful departure from Bing's early solo efforts such as JUST A GIGOLO, which were mournful and sad and not as upbeat as Bing could naturally sing. Soon after embarking on a solo recording career, Bing also found himself the star of radio and movies as well. For his first feature role in 1932, Bing recorded the jazz classic DINAH. It also marked the first pairing of Bing and the Mills Brothers. It is hard to come up with enough adjectives to describe this jazz masterpiece. It is a gem polished to near perfection by the singers and orchestra alike. The version Bing sang in "The Big Broadcast'' with lone accompaniment by guitarist Eddie Lang is equally good with Bing really digging his teeth into the scat singing part of the song. Bing returned to singing with a great jazz orchestra when he lent his vocals to Duke Ellington's rendition of ST. LOUIS BLUES. This recording with the Duke is an early example of Bing's ability to sing jazz convincingly. He fits into the Ellington scene as if he had been part of the band for years. Bing's next great jazz rendering is his take on the Sophie Tucker theme SOME OF THESE DAYS. Crosby sings the enjoyable ditty with the Lennie Hayton orchestra, and the recording featured a great solo by Crosby favourite Eddie Lang. The song was written by Shelton Brooks in 1910 specifically for Tucker. However, the recording made by Bing is the one that is frequently quoted as an example of Bing's ability to sing jazz. In 1933, Bing teamed up with the now forgotten Jimmy Grier band to record the Gordon Jenkins composition BLUE PRELUDE. All the sentiments of pain and anguish are expressed by Bing's magnificent phrasing, and Bing turns it into more of a blues number than a jazz one. Bing would go on to record over half a dozen songs with the Grier organization, like: LEARN TO CROON, DOWN THE OLD OX ROAD, and THANKS, but none of his other recordings had as much of a jazz feel as BLUE PRELUDE did. By 1935, Bing Crosby was taking matters into his own hands. He left Brunswick records to become one of the charter recording stars of the newly formed Decca Records. Under the direction of its founder Jack Kapp, Bing recorded less jazz oriented numbers. However, throughout the decades he would record with some of the greats of jazz like Connee Boswell, Lee Wiley, Jack Teagarden, and Louis Jordan. However, that is for another story...another article!

BING AND THE RHYTHM BOYS

If anyone can help me, that would be great. I am not sure where this video comes from. Bing sings "Out Of Nowhere" as a solo and then joins in with the Rhythm Boys. Nevertheless where this is from, Bing was great...

AL RINKER INTERVIEW

Here is an interview with Al Rinker, one of the Rhythm Boys. He talks about Bing and the Rhythm Boys. Al Rinker also was the brother of the great Mildred Bailey!
Al Rinker talks about Bing Crosby and the Rhythm Boys
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