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!

HOW THE MODERN GENERATION CAN BECOME INTERESTED IN BING - A PERSONAL ACCOUNT

Here is a guest writer to this blog. ModernBingFan0377 makes some great points on keeping Bing's memory alive...

The first exposure to Der Bingle was when I was 2, Disney had separated some of their half hour shorts from the 40s on VHS. I had 'Mickey and the Beanstalk', but the trailers before the main program showed clips from the others including 'The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow'. I was entertained by the Ichabod song and wanted to watch it, but alas I never did. A few years later I was helping my mother put up Christmas decorations, and we had on a TV that played Christmas music, and Bing's 'Frosty the Snowman' came up. I remember initially judging it as I loved Jimmy Durante's version of 'Frosty'. I would encounter his Christmas music from time to time after that and watched Holiday Inn and White Christmas with my family.

About 10 years after hearing him sing 'Frosty', as a Christmas fanatic, I decided to find a few free Christmas albums on Amazon Prime music, and I greatly enjoyed what I heard. Around this same time my parents and I were trying to find music I liked besides Christmas music. I didn't like modern stuff or Elvis, I tried Frank Sinatra and he just didn't grab my attention. I grew to like some of Frank's Christmas outings as well as Bing's, so a picked up 2 Christmas CDs of theirs. A Laserlight mostly radio CD of Bing, and a Columbia Christmas Compilation for Frank. Another year went by and I got a few more CDs, mainly of Bing, The Complete Decca Christmas Songbook and the Christmas TV Specials, Volume 2 of the the Television Specials. At the time I didn't realize I was buying duplicates. I listened to the CDs and decided to look for some non-Christmas outings by Bing, and enjoyed them. I then bought a import 2CD set from Amazon called 'The Very Best Of Bing Crosby' and loved it. Later on that spring I decided to buy my first load of regular Crosby stuff (not counting the 2CD set mentioned), ordering multiple records and the His Legendary Years set. From then on I was a set-in-stone Crosby fan.

To help keep his legacy alive I've introduced him to many of my friends both at school and online. This has made a few more people Crosby fans. One tip I will give is to, if you have children, have your children, if they like Crosby, tell their friends about him. I know I was glad to find his music...

By ModernBingFan0377

DIXIE LEE HONORED

HARRIMAN, Tenn. (WVLT) -- Wilma Winifred Wyatt was born on November 4, 1909 in Harriman, Tennessee.

In 1928, she kicked off her stage career after winning a Chicago singing contest and changed her name to Dixie Lee after she joined Fox Film Corp. in 1929.

On November 8, 2019, more than 100 years later, the City of Harriman held a Dixie Lee Day to celebrate their most famous hometown girl.

The day featured a discussion of Lee's film career with radio host Bradley Reeves and Chris Hammond. Afterwards, attendees were treated to "Love in Bloom," arguably Lee's most famous film.

In 1930, Lee married Bing Crosby, and retired from acting in 1935.

She later died in 1952 of ovarian cancer.

Photo courtesy of Chris Hammond

BING AND HIS GOLDEN GLOBE

Beginning in 1952 when the Cecil B. deMille Award was presented to its namesake visionary director, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has awarded its most prestigious prize 66 times. From Walt Disney to Bette Davis, Elizabeth Taylor to Steven Spielberg and 62 others, the deMille has gone to luminaries – actors, directors, producers – who have left an indelible mark on Hollywood. Sometimes mistaken with a career achievement award, per HFPA statute, the deMille is more precisely bestowed for “outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment”. In this series, HFPA cognoscente and former president Phil Berk profilesdeMille laureates through the years.

He was the personification of the laidback, the unflappable, Mr. Cool.

For twenty years Bing Crosby was the world’s most popular actor, even during World War II, when he was affectionately known as Der Bingle by the Germans, a name that caught on in the States once the war ended.

But long before he received his Cecil B deMille award in 1960 Crosby had proved himself as both a crooner and an actor without peer.

He started out as part of a singing trio but eventually went solo with big bands: Paul Whiteman and Jimmy Dorsey. For decades he was the biggest name in music and in one year commanded 60% of all record sales. In fact, his “White Christmas” remains the biggest selling single of all time.

He soon became a fixture in radio and had the top-rated shows on the airways for decades. He even conquered television in later years.

But it was his film career that earned him cultural immortality. His first feature-film role, after having done a number of short subjects, was The Big Broadcast for which he was given top billing. He continued to get top billing at Paramount for 30 years. (The one exception was playing opposite William Randolph Hearst’s mistress Marion Davies in his second feature Going Hollywood.)

Among actresses acquiescing to second billing in those early movies were Joan Bennett, Carole Lombard, Miriam Hopkins, Merle Oberon, Ethel Merman, and Frances Farmer. During his first decade between 1933 to 1939, he starred in twenty movies, all box office successes. The ’40s, however, were his greatest years. In 1940 he made the first of his now-classic road movies, The Road to Morocco, with Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour. It was so successful the second, Road to Zanzibar, followed the next year. Even today these road movies are considered worthy successors to the Marx Brothers classics.

By 1943 he was the world’s most popular actor and in fact held that title for five years as Hollywood’s top box office draw. During that period he experienced his first blockbuster and first collaboration with Irving Berlin: Holiday Inn. This time his second-billed costar was Fred Astaire.

But it was Going My Way, in 1944, which established him as a Hollywood icon, winning him a Best Actor Academy Award. After that, his reputation was sealed.

The following year, in a rare loan out to RKO. he reprised his role of Father O’Malley in The Bells of St Mary’s opposite Ingrid Bergman. The two became the world’s most popular actors, and the film the year’s biggest box office hit. Unfortunately Paramount didn’t know what to do with him. He was assigned top directors (Billy Wilder, Frank Capra) but nothing really clicked, although Capra’s Riding High is a fun ride. His last commercial success for Paramount was Irving Berlin’s White Christmas which was 1954’s biggest moneymaker.

But then he was given the dramatic role of his career playing the alcoholic husband in The Country Girl. Grace Kelly, playing his long-suffering wife, got all the plaudits but it was Crosby who gives the film’s great performance. She won the Best Actress in a Motion Picture Golden Globe, Crosby wasn’t nominated.

Six years later he received his first Hollywood Foreign Press honor, the Cecil B. deMille Award for lifetime achievement. He was 57 at the time.

Country Girl was Crosby’s swansong at Paramount and from then on he freelanced. The highlight of this period was Cole Porter’s High Society for MGM, teaming him for the first time with fellow crooner Frank Sinatra. Grace Kelly was again his costar. During the filming, he pursued her ardently, but she ran off and married Prince Rainier ending her Hollywood career.

Which segues into the only blot on his hallowed career, his conduct as a husband and father. He was married to singer Dixie Lee for over 20 years before her death. She was an alcoholic and the mother of his four sons. For much of that time, they were estranged but as a good Catholic, he stayed by her side. Their eldest son Gary wrote an autobiography detailing the cruel punishments inflicted upon him by his father. Despite his high expectations, none of his kids amounted to much, although Gary had a short career as a juvenile in teenage movies.

After Dixie died Crosby married actress Kathryn Grant, 30 years his junior. They had three children.

Sadly, Crosby died suddenly on a golf course in Spain at age 74.

As a Hollywood icon, he has few equals...

SOURCE

DIXIE LEE TO GET HISTORICAL MARKER

PRESS RELEASE - HARRIMAN NATIVE AND ACTRESS DIXIE LEE TO RECEIVE STATE HISTORICAL MARKER...

Harriman, Tennessee – The Tennessee Historical Commission recently approved an application to honor Harriman native and Actress of the Golden Age of Hollywood, Dixie Lee. Dixie was born in the Walnut Hill neighborhood in Harriman near the intersection of Oak and Maple Streets, where the marker will be installed later this year. Unfortunately, the modest wooden frame house that was located on the property was destroyed by fire in 1959. Dixie Lee was born on Nov. 4, 1909 as Wilma Winifred Wyatt, although she later claimed to have been born in 1911. Wilma was the youngest of three daughters born to East Tennessee natives, Evan Wyatt and Nora Scarborough Wyatt.

Throughout her youth her family moved several times due to her father’s career as an insurance agent, eventually ending up in Chicago, Illinois where Wilma entered and won an amateur singing contest at the Sherman Hotel in 1928. This led to her being offered a part in a Broadway play and ultimately to her being discovered by Fox Film Corporation. Her name was changed to “Dixie Lee” to avoid confusion with another actress with a similar name. She made her big screen debut in Fox’s Movietone Follies of 1929. She went on to have major and minor roles in at least 17 known films. In 1930, she met and married a little known up-and-coming crooner by the name of Harry Lillis Crosby, Jr., or “Bing Crosby” as he would later become known. She retired from acting in 1935, and helped Bing raise their 4 boys. She died on Nov. 1, 1952, from ovarian cancer. Over the years, she has been largely forgotten and become a footnote in her famous husband’s story.

However, this talented Harriman native will now be remembered for who she was and the talent she possessed. Details for a public dedication will be released later this year.

The City would like to thank Dixie Lee’s granddaughter in California and Chris Hammond from Powell, Tennessee without whom this application would not have been successful...

SWINGING ON A STAR

SWINGING ON A STAR
By Charles Apple - THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW

Seventy-five years ago today, the movie “Going My Way” was released in theaters. The musical featured Spokane’s own Bing Crosby in a role that would win him an Academy Award and that featured him singing a song that would win an Oscar.


This would be Crosby's first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor and the only time he’d win an Oscar. He’d be nominated again the next year for “The Bells of St. Mary’s” and then one more time in 1954.

But Crosby, in fact, was well- acquainted with the Oscars. Even by 1944, Crosby had sung songs in movies that had been nominated five times for Academy Awards.

Crosby did a lot more than just star in movies and sing in musicals. He recorded 50 to 70 records a year during the 1940s. He pioneered the use of prerecorded radio shows on reel-to-reel magnetic tape — reportedly, so he could spend more time playing golf. In 1963, Crosby would receive the first Grammy Global Achievement Award.

Crosby gave benefit concerts to help sell war bonds and did special programs for the Armed Forces Radio Network. He traveled to France to entertain troops just months after the D-Day invasion.

And he took his golf seriously. He worked his way to a 2 handicap and played in both the British and U.S. Amateur Championships. He started a tournament in 1937 that has evolved into the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

Crosby was born in Tacoma but his family moved to Spokane when he was 3 years old. He attended Gonzaga University and would perform between films in Spokane’s Clemmer Theater — which is now named after Crosby.

Crosby died in 1977 after playing a round of golf at La Moraleja Golf Course near Madrid, Spain. He was 74...

SOURCE

BING DESERVES A BIRTHDAY BASH

Here's an interesting article that I found online about how Bing deserve a birthday bash each year...

Yesterday was Elvis Presley’s birthday.

Because I once lived in Memphis, that sometimes makes me wonder.

Should Bing Crosby be a bigger deal in Spokane than he seems to be?

Oh, I realize Bing is and always will be an iconic figure here in the city where he grew up. Rightly so. He is a long, long way from being forgotten, here or elsewhere.

But here’s the thing. Elvis is practically an industry in Memphis. And though my memories of how that Tennessee city regarded the late singer are of the long-ago variety now, I remember that celebrations of his life were almost inescapable there.

Some of the reasons might be obvious.

Though both singers died in 1977, Elvis was much younger and closer to the height of his fame at that time.

His fan base was/is younger.

Though he spent a lot of time in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, Elvis never stopped living in Memphis. Crosby had a lake place in Idaho, but Southern California was his adult home.

For those in Britain or Nova Scotia planning a pilgrimage, Memphis is easier to get to.

Because Elvis lived in Memphis as an adult, there are more people still alive there with relevant brush-with-fame stories.

And so on.

I’m not really sure what a heightened level of Crosby appreciation would look like here in Spokane. Beyond the acknowledgements our city already has in place, I mean. Everybody pretending to smoke a pipe on a designated Bing Day? Everybody dressing like Father O’Malley from “Going My Way”?

Maybe it would suffice if more people read the biography of the crooner by Gary Giddins. (The first volume has lots of Spokane stuff.)

Or perhaps we should just be satisfied to let time march on. Spokane has occasionally been accused of living in the past, after all...

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NINE THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT BING

Great info on Bing...

Nine things you might not know about legendary crooner Bing Crosby.

1. He got his name from a comic strip in The Spokesman-Review: Born Harry Lillis Crosby in Tacoma, Bing moved with his family to Spokane when he was 3 years old. The new name found him when he was 7. At the time, The Spokesman-Review ran a comics-page feature called “The Bingville Bugle,” which was a parody of hillbilly newspapers. Little Harry thought it was a real hoot and laughed uproariously whenever he read it. A neighbor, 15-year-old Valentine Hobart, noticed the laughter and started calling him “Bingo from Bingville.” The nickname was soon shortened to Bing and stuck with him for the rest of his life.

2. He might have been a lawyer if only it paid better: Before heading for Hollywood in 1925, Bing was a law student in his third year at Gonzaga University. In addition to his studies, he worked part-time in the office of Spokane attorney Col. Charles S. Albert and performed in a popular local dance band. “It began to dawn on me that I was making as much money on the side, singing and playing drums, as Col. Albert was paying his assistant attorney,” Bing later recounted. “This gave me to think: what was I doing pursuing the law when singing offered fatter financial possibilities.”

3. He scored 13 holes in one: Bing was no duffer on the golf course. He was a five-time club champion who was good enough to play in both the U.S. Amateur and the British Amateur championships. He was beset by throngs of fans when word got out that Bing Crosby was playing the U.S. Amateur, so he quietly entered the 1950 British tournament as Harry L. Crosby. Again, word leaked that it was Bing on the greens and record crowds filled the gallery. During his lifetime, he scored 13 holes in one, testament both to Bing’s ability and how often he played the game.

4. He saved the seventh game of the 1960 World Series: Bing was an owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team from 1946 until his death in 1977. When his Pirates played the New York Yankees in the 1960 World Series, Bing decided to take his wife to Paris rather than attend the game and risk jinxing his beloved ballclub. With the Series tied at three games each, Bing hired a private crew to film the seventh and deciding game so he could watch it when he got home. It turned out to be one of the greatest games in World Series history, with the Pirates winning 10-9 on second baseman Bill Mazeroski’s ninth-inning home run. Bing no doubt enjoyed watching the game upon his return, then quietly packed it away in the cool, dry basement of his California home. In 1960, baseball games were aired live but not typically recorded and it was long believed that dramatic game had been lost forever. But in 2009, a man cataloguing tapes of Crosby TV appearances for the crooner’s estate discovered five dusty metal film canisters labeled “1960 World Series.” The New York Times ran the story of the lost game found on its front page.

5. He also loved the hot ponies: When Bing and a few partners opened the Del Mar Racetrack just north of San Diego in 1937, he showed up to take tickets and shake hands at the entrance on opening day. For years, the track’s Turf Club was a hot spot for Hollywood star sightings and the horse racing was pretty good, too. In 1938, Del Mar hosted the famous winner-take-all two-horse race between Seabiscuit and Ligaroti, which NBC aired as the first-ever national radio broadcast of a horse race.

6. He was dreaming of a white Christmas in the film “Holiday Inn”: Bing’s rendition of “White Christmas” is still the best-selling single of all time, nearly 40 years after his death. Irving Berlin wrote the song for the 1942 musical film “Holiday Inn,” which starred Bing and Fred Astaire. Twelve years later, Bing starred with Danny Kaye in the film “White Christmas,” which borrowed the name and reprised the Academy Award-winning song. In between, Bing won the Academy Award for best actor in the 1944 film “Going My Way,” playing Father Chuck O’Malley, a character he based on a priest he had known at Gonzaga.

7. His last hit song was a duet with David Bowie: Bing’s televised Christmas TV specials were an American holiday staple until he died in 1977. The programs always featured Bing and his family, along with popular musical stars of the day, singing seasonal songs and performing skits. Bing invited the British glam rocker David Bowie to appear on his 1977 program and the two performed a strangely successful duet called “Peace on Earth,” complete with a corny intro sketch. The pre-recorded show actually aired two months after Bing died. In 1982, RCA released a single of the Bing-Bowie Christmas song, which has showed remarkable seasonal staying power over the years, climbing to No. 3 on the charts in December 2006.

8. He drove an Edsel to help Gonzaga: Bing built a new library for Gonzaga University back in the 1950s and raised some of the money for the project by starring in “The Edsel Show.” The television special, which aired in place of Ed Sullivan on Sunday, Oct. 13, 1957, starred Bing and friends Frank Sinatra, Rosemary Clooney, Louis Armstrong and, of course, Bob Hope. Although Bing was the real driver behind the show, his alma mater was by contract the producer and as a result received a tidy $250,000 payday. The show was notable as the first CBS entertainment program recorded on videotape for rebroadcasting in the West after the show was performed live for the TV audience in the East. It was also a hit, earning Look Magazine’s TV award for best musical show of the year. However, to the disappointment of sponsor Ford Motor Co., the show’s success did not transfer to the popularity of the new-for-1958 Edsel brand of automobiles.

9. His childhood home is open to the public: Bing grew up at 508 E. Sharp Ave. in Spokane in a Craftsman-style house built in 1913 by his father and two uncles. The family lived there until they sold the home to a neighbor in 1936. The house still sits at the edge of the campus of Gonzaga University, which today owns the property. The well-preserved Crosby home contains displays that celebrate Bing’s life and accomplishments – photographs, gold records, golf mementos, even the Oscar he won in 1944. It is open to the public 9 a.m.- 4:30 p.m. weekdays and 1-4 p.m. on Saturdays. There is no charge for admission.

SOURCE

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BING CROSBY - PART 4

By the 50’s, a new generation of Americans was transferring its musical loyalties to a very different kind of singer. Frank Sinatra started out as a “high Bing Crosby,” but quickly developed into something more: singing with the big band of Tommy Dorsey, he brought to the ballads of the 40’s a vulnerability that teenagers found irresistible. Like Crosby, he weathered a vocal crisis from which he emerged with a lower, darker voice, but it made him more rather than less interesting. The Sinatra of the 50’s sang with a sharp edge of sexuality and aggression, while his youthful vulnerability deepened into a quality bordering at times on outright despair.

Sinatra’s emotional candor stands in stark contrast to the impenetrable reserve of Crosby, who once famously told the lyricist Johnny Burke not to write songs for him that contained the phrase, “I love you.” Unlike Sinatra, he was never a confessional artist, and the intensity he brought to his early recordings of ballads like “Stardust” was musical rather than dramatic. (To put it another way, he sang songs, not monologues.) Revealingly, he preferred the middle-of-the-road backing of John Scott Trotter’s studio orchestras to the harder-swinging, harmonically sophisticated arrangements that Nelson Riddle created for such classic Sinatra albums of the 50’s as Songs for Swingin’ Lovers and Only the Lonely.

The 50’s continue to be portrayed in the media as a decade of mindless conformity, but they were actually a time of considerable cultural volatility, nowhere more so than in popular music and jazz. While the comforting sound of Bing Crosby’s balladry remained reassuring to many Americans, others were looking for something more emotionally challenging, and Sinatra’s confessionalism, like the deceptively “cool” jazz of the trumpeter Miles Davis, suited their mood perfectly.

To the end of his life, Crosby continued to make records and appear on radio and TV, and he never lost his ability to swing. (“Bing had the beat, the absolute best time,” said the drummer Jake Hanna. “You just followed him and he carried you right along.”) But his way of making music had become unfashionable, and because the middle-aged Crosby was the only one whom younger listeners knew, they came to see him as a symbol of everything they held in contempt.

As Giddins puts it: He was known to [the postwar generation] as a faded and not especially compelling celebrity, a square old man who made orange-juice commercials and appeared with his much younger family on Christmas telecasts that the baby boomers never watched. . . . They would have been amazed to learn how advanced, savvy, and forceful a musician he had been in his prime.

Fortunately, the other Bing Crosby—the greater Crosby—lives again in the first half of A Pocketful of Dreams, and on the best of the hundreds of records he made between 1927 and 1936. “As far as I am concerned,” Crosby said in 1960, “with the exception of a phonograph record or two, I don’t think I have done anything that’s really outstanding or great or marvelous or anything that deserves any superlatives.” In fact, he was a nonpareil jazz singer who has been unfairly written out of the history of the music he helped to shape, as well as a balladeer of magical sensitivity and irresistible vitality. In helping to restore him to life, and despite certain deficiencies in musical understanding, Gary Giddins has done an inestimable service to American music...

a href="https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/whatever-happened-to-bing-crosby/">SOURCE

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BING CROSBY - PART 3

As Bing Crosby lost his high notes and settled into a less demanding bass-baritone range, he also changed his style. Not only did he abandon the jazzy scat singing of his young years, he seemed almost to lose interest in jazz itself. Though he was always capable of unlimbering for such frisky novelties as Johnny Mercer’s “I’m an Old Cowhand” (1936) and “Bob White (Whatcha Gonna Swing Tonight?)” (1937, with Connie Boswell), he now concentrated on ballads, which he sang with a quiet warmth well suited to his deeper range.

By this time, Crosby was recording for Decca, a new label whose chief producer, Jack Kapp, had encouraged him to explore a repertoire better suited to the tastes of “the masses.” Kapp assured Crosby that by shunning “ ‘hot’ songs” and concentrating instead on a wide-ranging mixture of contemporary ballads, prewar standards (like “I Love You Truly” and “Let Me Call You Sweetheart”), collaborations with other popular Decca artists like the Andrews Sisters, and ethnic novelties ranging from country to Hawaiian music, he could attain a degree of popularity “as great as ever enjoyed by any singer in this country. You have in your grasp,” Kapp added, invoking the name of the astonishingly successful Irish tenor, “the opportunity to be the John McCormack of this generation.”

Bing Crosby unhesitatingly took Jack Kapp’s advice, and the results were just as predicted. By the 40’s, he was more than a pop singer, more than a movie star. Instead, he became, as Giddins rightly says, a member of the family: “No other pop icon has ever been so thoroughly, lovingly liked—liked and trusted. . . . His was the voice of the nation, the cannily informal personification of hometown decency—friendly, unassuming, melodious, irrefutably American.”

But Crosby paid a high price for allowing Jack Kapp to turn him into the musical equivalent of a Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post cover. Jazz is not an absolute value, and the fact that Crosby’s new style was less explicitly “jazzy” did not necessarily make it less good. (Nat “King” Cole, for example, became a better singer when he gave up jazz piano to concentrate on ballads.) The problem with the new Crosby was that his singing had become less vital, less compelling, lessinteresting. It was as though the loss of his high notes had also robbed him of his sense of musical adventure, his ability to surprise and delight the ear. The decline was not inexorable, and he would continue to make occasional memorable recordings well into the 1940’s. For the most part, though, he was now singing—figuratively as well as literally—in a lower key.

Gary Giddins has mixed feelings about Crosby’s change of style. “What his singing forfeited in muscularity,” Giddins argues, “it gained in poignancy. . . . Bing in the mid-30’s was the most quietly assured male pop singer alive.” Yet he also admits that there was more to it than that:
[I]n singling out McCormack as a career template and encouraging Bing to deflect hot songs, [Kapp] hoped to remake him as a smoother, less mannered, ultimately less expressive singer, a kind of musical comfort food. . . . [Crosby] was now on the verge of reinventing common-denominator aesthetics, creating a national popular music that pleased everyone. The cost, in the opinion of many observers, was encroaching blandness.

The strengths and weaknesses of the new Crosby can be heard in the great ballads he recorded during World War II “What’s New?” (Johnny Burke and Bob Haggart, 1939), “Skylark” (Johnny Mercer and Hoagy Carmichael, 1942), “It Could Happen to You” (Burke and Jimmy Van Heusen, 1943), “Long Ago and Far Away” (Ira Gershwin and Jerome Kern, 1944), and “Out of This World” (Cole Porter, 1944) rank high among the outstanding love songs of the decade, and Crosby sang them all with taste and sensitivity. But his interpretations seem almost detached, lacking the energy and ardor one might reasonably expect from a comparatively young man. To hear them is to be put in mind of Father O’Malley, the amiable priest Crosby played in the 1944 movie Going My Way. Like the good father himself, Bing Crosby in the 40’s sounded pleasant, engaging, humorous—and celibate...

SOURCE

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BING CROSBY - PART 2

Musically, Crosby combined Armstrong’s infallible swing with Beider-becke’s lyricism. Such early 78 sides as “I’m Coming, Virginia” (1927), “Ol’ Man River” (1928), and “Make Believe” (1928) show him to have been astonishingly light on his rhythmic feet, more so than any singer of the period besides Armstrong. He reworked melodies with the self-assurance of a master improviser, adding ornaments and altering rhythms as his fancy dictated, and his “scat” singing (the made-up nonsense syllables popularized by Armstrong), heard to especially good advantage on the electrifying version of “St. Louis Blues” he recorded with Duke Ellington’s band in 1932, was wonderfully bold.

The young Bing Crosby was, in short, a jazz singer, arguably the first one after Louis Armstrong, and without question one of the best who ever lived. He was also, as Giddins correctly points out, “the first great ballad singer in jazz. . . . His sound had little precedent: rich, strong, masculine, and clean.”

By 1931, Crosby had left the Whiteman band and the Rhythm Boys, the vocal trio with which he had been featured during his years with Whiteman, and embarked on a solo career. In that year he began to appear in short subjects directed by Mack Sennett, the king of movie slapstick, thereby revealing himself to be a natural comedian, and was hired by CBS to star in his own radio show, Fifteen Minutes with Bing Crosby.

Crosby’s movies and radio appearances advertised his recordings, which began to sell in vast quantities, and within two years he was so successful that he was able to stop performing in public altogether. Between 1933 and 1975, the only crowds he sang for were the studio audiences invited to watch his radio shows. Dozens of other pop singers based their styles on his, among them Russ Columbo, Perry Como, Bob Eberle, Billy Eckstine, Dick Haymes, and Dean Martin. “All the singers tried to be Crosbys,” one of them wryly admitted. “You were either a high Crosby or a low Crosby.” At the age of thirty, Bing Crosby had become (in Duke Ellington’s words) “the biggest thing, ever.”

But the ultimate basis for Crosby’s superstardom—his voice—was proving to be perilously fragile. He had long had problems with laryngitis (an attack of which forced him to postpone his highly publicized network radio debut for two days), and many of the records he was making in the late 20’s and early 30’s reveal a hoarseness in the upper register which, though part of his appeal, was also an unmistakable sign of strain.

Late in 1931, a doctor warned Crosby that he had developed a node (a hard blister) on one of his vocal cords, thus rendering him particularly susceptible to laryngitis. Surgery was impossible: it might alter the quality of his voice unpredictably and permanently. The only treatment was complete vocal rest, but, Crosby having just reached the peak of his early stardom, that, too, was out of the question. He kept on singing—and drinking to excess, thereby doing further damage.

According to Giddins, Crosby’s difficulties cured themselves over time. But to listeners familiar with the long-term consequences of faulty vocal technique, his records tell a different story. Though his natural tessitura was that of a low baritone, he had an upper extension that he used freely in the late 20’s and early 30’s, casually tossing off high E’s and F’s. But because he had no formal training, he never learned how to negotiate safely the “break” leading to his upper register, and a combination of overwork, drink, and flawed technique gradually weakened that part of his voice.

Crosby’s 1931 recording of Hoagy Carmichael’s “Stardust” provides a dramatic illustration of the risks he was taking. It is one of his most famous recordings, and deservedly so: his youthful ballad style, vibrant and robust, is heard here in all its golden glory. But he is also audibly hoarse, and he sings the repeated high E’s of the chorus in a wide-open, “uncovered” voice that any competent teacher would immediately have spotted as a recipe for disaster.

Predictably, Crosby had another vocal crisis in 1932, and was told to “rest and don’t even answer the phone—don’t talk, don’t do anything.” Instead, he took a ten-day break, then resumed his busy schedule. Giddins mentions this episode in passing, apparently not realizing that it marked a turning point in the singer’s career, the moment when he began irreversibly to “lose his top.” Though he continued to sing full-voiced high F’s on record as late as 1935, they became fewer and farther between, and songs that he might once have performed in the key of F, such as “June in January” and “With Every Breath I Take” (both 1934), were transposed down a full step, to E flat. Nor was the change limited to his upper register: by 1935, his voice had grown darker in timbre and heavier in texture from top to bottom...

SOURCE

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BING CROSBY - PART 1

It is understandable--if also unfortunate--that a man who once dominated American popular culture has largely faded from view.

For virtually any American over the age of sixty, Bing Crosby’s name is likely to evoke a wide range of memories. Though he was by far the best-known popular singer of the pre-rock era, Crosby was also a full-fledged movie star who won a best-actor Oscar for Going My Way (1944) and easily held his own opposite the likes of Fred Astaire and Bob Hope in such lighter fare as Holiday Inn (1942) andThe Road to Morocco (1942). His radio shows were no less successful, and with the arrival of TV in the 50’s, his face became as familiar a fixture in American homes as was his easygoing bass-baritone voice.

Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams, the first installment of a two-volume biography by the jazz critic Gary Giddins, It contains a list of statistics conveying something of the extent to which Crosby once dominated American popular culture. According to Giddins:

He made more recordings than any other singer, of which 38 were number-one hits, more than any other popular artist. (The Beatles, by contrast, topped the charts only 24 times.)

By 1980, he had sold a total of 400 million discs.

He was one of Hollywood’s top ten box-office attractions in America in fifteen different years between 1934 and 1954.

His best-known radio program, NBC’s Kraft Music Hall, reached an audience of as many as 50 million listeners—at the time, well over a third of the entire U.S. population.

But Crosby’s fame did not long survive his death in 1977. Indeed, it is now difficult to find anyone under the age of forty who knows anything specific about him other than that he recorded Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas.” By and large his work is available only on hard-to-find CD’s released by independent European labels, while most of his films are long forgotten.

Though several other artists of his generation—Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Benny Goodman among them—continue to be widely recognized as key figures in American music, Crosby tends increasingly to be overlooked by critics and journalists. He was, for instance, omitted entirely from Ken Burns’s ten-part PBS series Jazz, and is mentioned only in passing in Geoffrey C. Ward’s companion volume to the series.

How could so bright a star have dimmed so fast? Was there less to Bing Crosby than met the ear? Gary Giddins thinks not, and in A Pocketful of Dreams he makes the case for Crosby in unprecedentedly rich and rewarding detail. Though certain chapters could have been trimmed to useful effect (many readers will feel, for example, that far too much space is devoted to Crosby’s less important films), the book as a whole is both finely written and thoroughly engrossing. Still, in telling the story of how Crosby became “a phenomenon in the cultural life of the United States,” A Pocketful of Dreams occasionally dwells on the phenomenon at the expense of the artist.

Giddins is not himself a musician, trained or otherwise; for all his evident appreciation of Crosby’s singing, he lacks the technical knowledge needed to explain fully what he is hearing. And though his discussion of the posthumous decline in Crosby’s reputation is plausible as far as it goes, he is similarly unable to supply a completely adequate musical explanation for why “the most influential and successful popular performer in the first half of the 20th century” should have faded into semi-obscurity a mere quarter-century after his death...

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A TRIBUTE TO KEN BARNES

KEN BARNES: A MUSIC LEGEND

FEBRUARY 14, 1933 - AUGUST 4, 2015

THE ROAD TO IDAHO

By SYD ALBRIGHT

After Bing Crosby died in 1977 following 18 holes of golf near Madrid, Spain, Bob Hope said, "If friends could have been made to order, I would have asked for one like Bing." Nearly 3,000 mourners agreed and packed St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City for his memorial service.

His fatherly figure persona with the happy smile, mellow voice and unique singing style made him one of the most popular icons in entertainment history. We're reminded of him every winter when he sings, "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, just like the ones I used to know..."

And who can forget Bing clowning and dancing with Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour - the Sarong Queen - in the 1940 Road to Singapore comedy movie, and the six other "Road to" films ending in 1962 with The Road to Hong Kong?

Harry Lillis Crosby Jr. was born in Tacoma, one of seven children,and was raised in Spokane after age 3. Graduating from Gonzaga High School and spending three years at Gonzaga University, Bing also had a heart for Idaho, recording a University of Idaho fight song - "You're the Gem State, Idaho."

Bing's father - a bookkeeper - was of English descent whose ancestors included William Brewster, who came to America on the Mayflower in 1620 and was religious leader of Plymouth Colony. His mother Catherine Helen (Kate) was a second-generation Irish-American.

At age 7, Harry Junior enjoyed a comic strip in the Spokesman-Review called The Bingville Bugle. A neighbor kid named Valentine Hobart started calling him "Bingo from Bingville," and that's how Crosby got his nickname.

While working a summer job as a teenager at Spokane's Auditorium, he was inspired by watching Al Jolson perform; kindling his interest in entertaining. His first stint in show biz was playing drums in a band performing at high school dances and clubs. Next was singing at the Clemmer Theater - now Spokane's Bing Crosby Theater.

In 1925, Bing and his piano player pal Al Rinker took off for Los Angeles, where Al's sister, singer Mildred Bailey, helped them climb the show biz ladder. After a number of low-level gigs earning them $75 a week each, they caught the eye of bandleader Paul Whiteman who hired them and doubled their salary.

Whiteman put together The Rhythm Boys trio of Bing, Al and pianist-singer-songwriter Harry Barris, which led to movies - singing Mississippi Mud and several other songs in King of Jazz, made by Universal in 1930. Then trouble began.

"After awhile, Whiteman and Crosby started to not get along," one source wrote. "Bing had a drinking problem, and that had landed him in jail a couple of times. He missed some of the filming of Whiteman's movie 'King Of Jazz,' after being involved in a drinking and driving incident. Whiteman got Crosby released from the jail. Crosby was escorted in handcuffs to the studio by police whenever he was scheduled to appear in the movie."

The following year, the Rhythm Boys had a contract hassle with management while performing in L.A. at the Coconut Grove at the Ambassador Hotel (where Robert Kennedy was shot and killed). They quit the gig and soon broke up. But Bing's career as a solo singer took off.

By 1936, he was host of NBC's Kraft Music Hall on radio, replacing his former boss Paul Whiteman. He held that job for the next 10 years and showcased his signature song, "When the Blue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day..."

Bing appeared in more than three-dozen movies in the Thirties, and then hit the big time in the Forties with Road to Singapore, followed by a stream of films including Holiday Inn (1942), singing "White Christmas."

The advent of sophisticated microphones helped Bing sing. He didn't have to bellow his voice so that the audiences in the back of the theater could hear him - like his idol Al Jolson did.

Bing's lifelong friend, Spokane dentist Herb Rotchford, had a home on Hayden Lake and Bing would often visit. He loved the golf and the fishing. "He liked it so much, he had my father buy him a house on the lake and a Chris-Craft boat, sight unseen," Herb Jr. said.

In his autobiography Call Me Lucky, Bing called Hayden Lake an "oasis of enjoyment in a hurly-burly world." In 1930, Bing married Dixie Lee an 18-year-old actress whose real name was Wilma Winifred Wyatt, mother of Bing's four sons: Gary, twins Philip and Dennis and Lindsay.

There are probably dark pockets in everyone's life - including celebrities like Bing - but LIFE Magazine called him "incontestably the No. 1 Big Family Man of Hollywood," and others said he was "Hollywood's Most Typical Father." But was he?

His eldest son Gary didn't think so, remembering in his book Going My Own Way, "I dropped my pants, pulled down my under-shorts and bent over. Then he went at it with the belt dotted with metal studs he kept reserved for the occasion. Quite dispassionately, without the least display of emotion or loss of self-control, he whacked away until he drew the first drop of blood, and then he stopped. It normally took between 12 and 15 strokes."

However, People Magazine reported that Bing's boys were hardly paragons of virtue - possibly needing a little discipline: "That his four sons became notorious for drinking and squabbling scarcely tainted Bing's image; instead, he became the object of public sympathy, the good father afflicted with unruly and sometimes ungrateful children."

Gary noted how different his father was compared to the role he played as the kindly and wise Father O'Malley in the movie Going My Way that earned him an Academy Award.

Dixie also supported her husband's rigid discipline over the boys. Behind the curtain at the Crosby household it was far from the loving image that Bing projected. "It was a house of terror all the time," according to Gary, who described it as a household headed by an icy, dictatorial father, a lonely alcoholic mother and four boisterous, tormented boys.

Philip denied the charges, calling Gary a liar, but Dennis and Lindsay confirmed the abuse. Nevertheless, Lindsay charitably said, "I don't know of many fathers who gave more consideration to their children."

Family squabbles aside, Bing Crosby had a triumphant career.

During World War II, he exemplified The Greatest Generation by entertaining the troops fighting in Europe.

It must have been heart-wrenching for Bing playing the part of an alcoholic has-been in The Country Girl (1954), costarring Grace Kelly, when the bottle constantly had tormented the Crosby family. Bing controlled his drinking, but Dixie couldn't. In 1952, alcohol and ovarian cancer sadly took her life at age 40.

Then Bing pursued actresses Inger Stevens and Grace Kelly before marrying actress Kathryn Grant in 1957. They had three children - sons Harry Lillis III and Nathaniel, and daughter Mary, who is remembered as playing the character who shot JR in the popular Dallas television series.

Bing's latter years were devoted mostly to golf - a lifelong passion - television appearances, and building a business empire of TV stations, thoroughbred horse racing, Minute Maid frozen orange juice, Ampex Corporation and other enterprises.

In his lifetime, he made 79 movies and sang an incredible 396 chart singles, with 43 No. 1 hits - White Christmas three times.

On Oct. 14, 1977, Bing and his golfing pals walked away from the 18th hole at a Madrid golf course and he said, "That was a great game of golf, fellas." Moments later he suffered a massive heart attack.

Along with all the glory, awards, triumphs and tears, Bing Crosby will always be remembered as the affable, easy-going crooner with the blue eyes and the mellow voice.

Bob Hope outlived his old pal Bing by 28 years. When Bob died in 2003 at age 100, the world had lost two of the towering entertainment icons of the 20th century. Bing's White Christmas and Jingle Bells will still be heard every Christmas, and Bob Hope will always be in the hearts of military veterans for all his road shows in six wars - bringing smiles to grateful GI Joes taking a break from death and destruction.

It's not hard to imagine Bing and Bob making just one more movie together - Road to Heaven.

Syd Albright is a writer and journalist living in Post Falls. Contact him at silverflix@roadrunner.com.

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BING: AN IRISH HERO

Somebody just told me Bing Crosby was jailed for drunk driving in 1929. Right here in Hollywood even. I had no idea. 1929 was the middle of Prohibition. And Hollywood had been a dry town to begin with, before the movies came. So they hauled him in. They wouldn’t have dared a decade later, but this was 1929, and Bing was still a jazz singer then, and cops didn’t particularly like jazz singers. Or jazz trumpeters…the LAPD busted Louis Armstrong for marijuana possession a couple years later, in 1931. Vice cops were busy saving the city back then. They knew about Bing’s drinking back then. Who didn’t? But did they know that Bing and Louis would hang out smoking reefer in Chicago just a bit before? Probably not. That was a secret.

We didn’t know it, not in our family. Along with Jack Kennedy (or simply Jack), Bing Crosby (simply Bing) were icons in our house. Jesus and Jack on the wall, Bing on the Hi Fi. We didn’t know about the jailed for drunk driving, and we certainly know that he’d been a viper, getting high and cracking wise and singing with Satchmo…but we knew generally that he was quite the heller in his young days. That was a good thing, being quite the heller in your young days. It was expected. A drunk driving bust would have been perfectly understandable. Besides, the cops probably set him up anyway. That’s what we would have said. I don’t believe he was set up. I just think he was drunk. Bad luck. Somebody smacked into his car. Rear ended him. What can ya do? Looked it up–he was busted on Hollywood Blvd right there in front of the Roosevelt Hotel. No doubt I’ll think of that now every time I pass .Every time.

My mother called me the day he died. Bing died she said. It was like losing a grandfather’s brother, a relation you never saw in person, but knew all about. When my grandmother told my grandfather that Bing had died, my grandfather went pale. You aren’t gonna die on me too now, she asked. He recovered. No, No, I’m not going anywhere. But he did not long after.


There’s never been Irish Americans as important to American Irishmen since Jack and Bing. Jack’s story is too sad for words (and Bobby’s even sadder), but Bing’s ended just right. That was a great game, fellas. And it was.

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A TRIBUTE TO BING

Sadly the news of this show is a little late, but I am so happy that Bob Pasch is still going strong...

A Tribute to Bing starring Bob Pasch is heading to the Old Creamery Theatre for one show only on Saturday, November 15 at 2 p.m. A Dean Martin Tribute was originally scheduled at this time, however due to an emergency surgery he has had to cancel the show. The Old Creamery Theatre wishes him a speedy recovery. Lucky for you, we found an incredible Tribute to Bing Crosby to come to the Old Creamery Theatre!

Bob Pasch has delighted audiences for more than 30 years with his good, clean humor and his remarkable likeness in sound, appearance, and mannerisms to Bing Crosby. His tribute shows are endorsed by Kathryn Crosby, Bing’s widow, as well as all the major Bing Crosby fan clubs.

Tickets are $25 for adults and $18 for students. Reservations are recommended. Call the box office for tickets and information 319-622-6262 or visit us online at www.oldcreamery.com.

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110 YEARS OF BING CROSBY

 

It is hard to believe that the voice of the 20th century, Bing Crosby would be 110 years old. Bing singing "Brother Can You Spare A Dime" was the voice of the Great Depression. When he sang "I'll Be Seeing You" he was the voice of World War II, and when he sang such catchy tunes was "South America,Take It Away" or "You Don't Have To Know The Language" with the Andrews Sisters, he was the voice of the post war prosperity that our country has not seen in years. Bing was so many things to so many people.

To me, Bing Crosby was like an extra grandfather. He always reminded me of my own Grandfather (until my Grandfather started looking like Peter Boyle on Everyone Loves Raymond). My Grandfather had many of the same mannerisms and moods that Bing had. My Grandfather introduced me to Bing, and they both got me through some tough times in my life. A Bing Crosby recording could set the mood for anything you are feeling. When I would break up with a girlfriend or visa versa I would listen to Bing's "I'm Through With Love". When I wanted to feel happy I would put on "My Heart Is A Hobo" or "Sunshine Cake". When I finally fell in love and married my wife, Bing's version of the Rodgers and Hart standard "You Are Too Beautiful" became the theme song that I remember. Bing Crosby again was so many things to so many people.

As I said, my Grandfather introduced me to Bing at a young age. My first Bing recording was a 45rpm I bought for 50 cents of "My Girl's An Irish Girl" and "Galaway Bay". I bought it when I was six in 1980. I actually had that record up until maybe nine years ago. Most of my Bing Crosby collection is now on CD, but if I play a song now that my Grandfather and I played on one of his 78rpms, I can still remember where the skips or scratches were. Bing Crosby not only has sung the soundtrack of my life, he helped a young kid get closer to his Grandfather. For that alone Bing is the second most important man I ever had in my life. Happy 110th birthday Der Bingle...

BING LEFT ME WANTING MORE

Here is an excellent editorial/appreciation written by Bing Crosby guru Steve Fay. He is the best friend a Bing fan can have...

The longer I am a Bing Crosby fan, the more this seems to be true. As I learn more about Bing's career--his recordings, movies, and contributions to broadcasting and culture--I not only want to keep listening, watching, and learning, I also and especially wish he could have been with us longer.

Bing died the same year Elvis did, Elvis who was one of those rock icons who shook up popular music threatening and displacing artists singing in styles popular in the 20s to mid-50s, but Elvis did not leave me wanting more. By the time I was in high school (late 60s) his career seemed mostly over and to put it kindly, with few exceptions, his movies were poor. But I felt a profound loss at the news that Bing died. At that time, really all I knew about Bing was his most popular movies, playing occasionally on TV, his occasional TV specials and other appearances I'd watched growing up, and a couple dozen of his 78s, part of a collection I expanded after restoring an old wind-up Victrola about my second year of high school.

Now, when I have most of his LPs and several LP and CD compilations of his work, as well as several of his movies on VHS and DVD, and when I have read much more about him, I can't help wishing he could have given us more songs, more movies (musicals and dramas and even thrillers), more broadcast appearances of many kinds, and even more Christmas specials and song recordings. I will hear some song from the decades since he died and think, "Bing could have done a great version of that one!" I will hear Tony Bennett doing more duet recordings and recall what a master of the duet Bing was, not only from films but from so many duets with guests appearing on his decades of radio shows! Had Bing been around another decade or more, how many fascinating and memorable duet collaborations might he have given us?

And then, when I think of "The Country Girl," "Stagecoach," and "Dr. Cook's Garden" (a still from which is now my computer wallpaper), I sometimes wonder if we only began to know Bing's potential range as an actor. It boggles my mind to imagine the sorts of non-singing dramatic roles, humorous character-actor roles, and even horror or sci-fi roles those three films begin to suggest might have been possible in a longer Crosby film career. Then, too, now when name film actors have started to disappear from the screen in droves to do cartoon character voice-over roles for Pixar and other studios, Bing might have excelled far beyond what he gave us in that area as well...had he stayed with us a dozen or so more years.

Then, also, I can't forget what was happening in Bing's recording collaborations with Ken Barnes at the time Bing died. To my ears, they were getting better and better. Where might that musical road have led with more time?

There is a maxim about how a great performer knows to leave the stage while the audience still wants more (rather than after they've had quite enough I suppose), but I rather think that Bing could have given us several more marvelous years, and I personally would have still wanted more, because who knows how much more potential and range those years might have begun to reveal. On the other hand, I don't want to sound ungrateful. I am very thankful for all the enjoyment Bing has given the world, me included. I am also grateful to the longer-term and more dedicated Crosby fans who have done so much to keep his legacy alive, who also have also done so much for so long to teach and foster newer and evolving fans like me...

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BING CROSBY BENEFIT CONCERT

Citizens Who Care presents its 21st annual benefit concert "Yes Indeed! The Great Songs of Bing Crosby," at the Veterans Memorial Center Theatre, 203 E. 14th St., Davis, in Woodland, California at 7 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 23, and again at 2 p.m., Sunday, Feb. 24.

To most Americans, Bing Crosby was the eternal crooner, a much-celebrated and beloved performer of unparalleled popularity. Yet he was far more than that. He was an architect of 20th century entertainment, a force in the development of three industries that barely existed when he came into the world -- recordings, motion pictures, and broadcasting.

Throughout much of his career, he dominated the music charts with nearly 300 hit singles to his credit. To this, he added stardom in movies, radio and television. His work helped to transform and define the cultural life not only of the United States, but of the world.

"Yes, Indeed! -- The Great Songs of Bing Crosby" captures the highlights of Crosby's unparalleled 50-year career, stretching from his early jazz roots with "Bix" Beiderbecke and Paul Whiteman, through his crooner years of the 1930s, his movie hits of the 1940s and 50s, and beyond.

Stephen Peithman tells the Crosby story with the help of performers Joe Alkire, Bob Bowen, Gwyneth Bruch, Martha Dickman, Paul Fearn, Lisa Derthick, and Lenore Sebastian, accompanied by musical director LuAnn Higgs and percussionist Jim Nakayama.

Songs include "Swinging on a Star," "Three Little Words," "Sweet Georgia Brown," "Brother Can You Spare a Dime," "It's Easy to Remember," "Don't Fence Me In," "Pennies from Heaven," "What's New?," "Yes, Indeed!," "Blue Skies," "Play a Simple Melody," "How Deep is the Ocean?," "Too Marvelous for Words," "Dear Hearts and Gentle People," "When Irish Eyes are Smiling," "Imagination," "The Second Time Around," "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening," and "Star Dust," among others.

All proceeds will benefit Citizens Who Care, a nonprofit agency in Yolo County, dedicated to providing social support programs and respite services for the frail elderly and their family caregivers.

All seats are $35. For tickets and information call 758-3704 or go to www.citizenswhocare.us. Tickets are also available at the Citizens Who Care office, 409 Lincoln Ave., Woodland.

The Yolo County charity Citizens Who Care seeks to improve the quality of life for the frail elderly of Yolo County and their family caregivers through social support programs and services. Trained, caring volunteers, with the support of our professional staff, provide a variety of support and social programs...

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BING CROSBY AND ME

By Jamie Todd Rubin

I don’t know when it was that I first heard of Bing Crosby. I know that the name was familiar when I was younger, but only because it was distinctive. Who else in entertainment was named “Bing”? In college, I recall hearing one of his songs, “They All Laughed” but I don’t exactly recall where I heard it. I like it though, and I played it over and over again.

Sometime after graduating when I was living in Studio City, California, I walked into a record store (this was circa 1995: there were still big chain record stores in existence) and was browsing around and I came across a Bing Crosby boxed set. It was called Bing: His Legendary Years 1931-1957. At this point I’d only ever heard a handful of Bing’s songs, most of them seasonal songs. But I remember listening through most of the 100+ songs in the boxed set that first day, in my tiny apartment, and it felt like I was living in a different era. There was something magical about the songs, some kind of pseudo-nostalgia for a period I’d missed. I’ve been a Bing Crosby fan ever since.

I have no idea of gauging what his most popular songs were, but I suspect they were the Christmas songs. My favorites run the gamut, but if I had to pick one absolute favorite, I think it would be “Far Away Places.” There is something magical about that song as well, not only in the way it is performed, but in the lyrics themselves. I liked the song so much that it was mentioned in my first published science fiction story, “When I Kissed the Learned Astronomer” when two people visiting an observatory on the surface of the moon dance to this song under the earth-light.

I have lots of other favorites including some of Bing’s collaborations with other entertainers and musicians, like his duet with Louis Armstrong, “Gone Fishin’.” I think I’ve remarked before how I never sang lullaby’s to the Little Man when he was a baby. I’d always sing Bing Crosby songs and although he is only 2-1/2 years old, he can sing “Gone Fishin’” as well as other songs like what he calls “the train song”: “The Atchison-Topeka and the Santa Fe”. It is adorable to hear him finish the lines. I sing Bing songs to the Little Miss as well and they seem to calm her down. And when I get to the end of a song, it’s almost as if she knows it, she starts turning out her lower lip and I have to start right back in lest the tears begin flowing once more.

It was well, after listening to and learning Bing’s songs (I probably know 160 of them by heart) that I started watching the movies he made. I can remember the first time I saw White Christmas and was mesmerized by it. I watched other movies like Going My Way and The Bells of St. Mary’s. I watched pseudo-movies like Holiday Inn. I’ve seen two of the Road movies (The Road to Morocco and The Road to Bali) and found them both to be hysterically funny. But my favorite Bing Crosby movie is High Society in large part because of Grace Kelly. I don’t watch that movie often, but wow, what a movie! (And yes, I’ve seen The Philadelphia Story, and I’m sorry, but this is one case where the remake is better than the original.)

There is a Bing Crosby song for just about every occasion. The last time I was in Hawaii, I sat out on the lanai overlooking the Pacific ocean with a warm breeze blowing through my hair listening to a series of songs like “Trade Winds” and “Harbor Lights” and “Blue Hawaii.” I was in an Irish bar in Old Town Alexandria one time and the entire bar started singing “Clancy Lowered the Boom” and I was able to join in because I knew the verses from a Bing Crosby duet. When my Grandfather was nervous, frightened and depressed the night before his quadruple bypass surgery, I queued up Bing’s “Be Careful, It’s My Heart” and played it for him. The song opens: “Be careful, it’s my heart. It’s not my watch your holding, it’s my heart.” I told him he should sing those bars to the surgeon as an admonition to him before he got started. It made my grandfather laugh and feel better. When I drop off the check for the Little Man’s tuition at his school, I often find myself humming, “I found a million dollar baby, in a five and ten cent store.”

Sometime in 2000, Gary Giddins came out with the first volume of a Bing Crosby biography, Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams which read twice and enjoyed. I’ve since been awaiting the second volume, wondering if it will ever come.
It seems that it is odd for someone born in the early 1970s to be a fan of Bing Crosby. What’s more, he was politically conservative and I am politically liberal. There were rumors that about him and his kids (Giddins dispels these rumors as just that in his biography, but who knows for sure, right?) Somehow, perhaps because I didn’t grow up at a time when Bing was the superstar entertaining for music and film, none of this affects my enjoyment of his music or movies.

Bing died on October 14, 1977 at the age of 74 and did so in a way that would make most people envious. Isaac Asimov once wrote that he hope he would die at the typewriter, with his nose in the keys, doing what he loved best. That’s not how it worked out for him, but it is how it worked out for Bing Crosby. He was in Spain and had just finished up a round of golf with several of his good friends. He said, “That was a great game of golf, fella,” turned to walk to the clubhouse, and was struck dead by a massive heart attack.

This time of year, I always find myself with the urge to listen to his music, and no just the holiday music, all of it his entire body of work. It takes me back to a time that never really existed for me, one where life was a little simpler and things weren’t so interconnected, and you didn’t have to worry about “disconnecting” for a while...

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