![]() “Somehow or another they called me Bingo and then they knocked off the ‘o’ and now I’m Bing.”Ĭrosby loved singing but started out as a drummer with a high school band called The Musicaladers led by Al Rinker, brother of the noted singer Mildred Bailey. “There was a comic strip called the Bingville Bugle in our newspapers and there was a character named Bingo in there,” Crosby explained to a BBC TV interviewer in 1965. It was as a youngster, around seven years old, that Crosby acquired his nickname, “Bing,” which quickly stuck. The Crosby family loved music: His mother, a homemaker, was an enthusiastic singer, and his father, a bookkeeper, played mandolin and guitar, providing accompaniment for the family when they gathered to sing together on Sunday evenings. (Crosby acknowledged his Irish heritage throughout his career and in 2023, a newly compiled digital compilation, Bing Crosby’s Irish Songbook, celebrated his association with the Emerald Isle.) Formative years and early stardomīaptized Harry Willis Crosby, Bing Crosby was born in Tacoma, Washington, in 1903 and raised in Spokane one of seven children born into a devout Catholic family with Irish roots on his mother’s side. ![]() What follows should be viewed as an introduction to his vast canon rather than a definitive list. Sifting through his catalog, we’ve compiled a Bing Crosby best of that is a blend of familiar and some lesser-known recordings a combination of ice-melting Yuletide heart warmers, smoothly sung expressions of romantic joy, and indelible readings of jazz standards. As one of pop’s first superstars, Crosby sold a phenomenal number of records – it was estimated that his sales figures had reached the 200 million mark as far back as 1960 – and during a recording career that spanned 50 years, from 1927 to 1977, he put his stamp on over 1500 songs, a feat that makes selecting the best Bing Crosby tunes a daunting task for even the most discerning and knowledgable of his fans. Listen to the best Bing Crosby songs now.īut it is mostly for his music and movies that we fondly remember Bing Crosby today, the jug-eared, pipe-smoking entertainer who loved to relax by playing golf and was jokingly nicknamed “Old Groaner” by bandleader Tommy Dorsey. His other business interests contributed to the development of another technological innovation, videotape and away from music and Hollywood, he also purchased a couple of TV stations, owned a stud farm that bred racehorses, and from 1946 up to his death in 1977, co-owned the Pittsburgh Pirates, a baseball team. ![]() He was a multi-faceted entertainer who, thanks to the advent of new technological developments in the first half of the 20th century – namely the invention of the microphone together with the rise of radio and the birth of both the recording and motion picture industries – became one of the first truly international icons in the history of the world.īesides being a prolific recording artist who sold millions of records worldwide, Crosby’s other accomplishments were many he was an Academy Award-winning Hollywood actor who appeared in 85 movies, including seven Road To pictures with comedian Bob Hope he was a popular radio and TV host with his own nationally broadcast shows and, perhaps unknown to many, he was an astute businessman who played a key role in advancing recording industry technology by investing heavily in Ampex, a company which pioneered the use of magnetic recording tape after the Second World War. Though renowned for the warm treacly sound of his resonant baritone voice, which dominated the airwaves during the golden age of radio broadcasting in the 1930s and 40s, Bing Crosby was so much more than a singer.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |