I Have A Question About Bing Crosby

Many years ago, I read something that coloured thereafter my understanding of this artist. It said, in the 1930's Bing Crosby was amongst the first in popular music to exploit the potential of the microphone. The story implied that Crosby was not a particularly good singer, but as one of the first to use the microphone post- the "Busby Berkeley" era of megaphone amplification, he made an impact beyond his true measure.

Today, I happened to hear this classic on the radio driving home:



I think it's great! His voice is deep, melodious, perfectly tuned. Microphones seems peripheral to me to the sound he gets on this recording.

And so my question: was Bing Crosby a great singer, or was he mostly a product of emerging 1930's technologies?

 

I think what they were trying to say is that before his time people had to sing very loudly to be heard. The way he made use of the microphone by singing softly like he was singing just to you is one of the things people consider to be groundbreaking. I've never heard anyone say he didn't have a great voice. There's a great thread somewhere on this board where Steve Hoffman goes into greater explanation of Bings use of the microphone and I would link it here for you if I weren't on my cellphone.

Try doing a search and seeing if you can find it.

 

Is it this post?
http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/bing-crosby-artist-of-the-century.161051/#post-3804878

 

Hey that's great, I will study this, thanks!

 

When I toured studio B, the tour guide compared Jim Reeves style to Bing Crosby

 

That was very interesting and I think it does touch but indirectly on my question, when it was mentioned that Bing was the first pop music figure to get past the shouting mannered kind of singing (Paul McCartney lampooned this on Honey Pie and other songs) to a confident, intimate or conversational style. But here is where technology comes in. The microphone and amplification permitted his natural tones to come through in live performance and on radio. He wouldn't have sounded nearly as effective in the earlier environment. However, I do think he was great singer with a rich, melodious voice, not average in any way: it was both.