I think we do not yet have a thread like this for Bing. Starting it with news about a "new" album. A new CD with Bing's Christmas recordings over-dubbbed by the London Symphony Orchestra: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B07XJSJD4S/
Huge fan of Bing Crosby here! I always loved his TV specials when I was a kid, and White Christmas has long been a Christmas movie tradition in my family. A few years back, I tracked down the first 37 volumes of The Chronological Bing Crosby on CD, which cover his entire recorded output from 1926 to 1944. I have a bunch of other albums of his from the 1950s-1970s, too. He is simply one of the greatest vocalists of the 20th Century. I'll have to check out the new Christmas CD, although I'm a little skeptical about those overdubbed projects; some are OK, but some are pretty bad.
Bing Crosby and sitting next to him, Les Paul. One of the greatest meetings of the 20th Century for recordings. Bing bought Les an Ampex tape recorder to 'fiddle' with....... the rest is written and heard into history... http://www.les-paul.com/timeline/sound-on-sound/
Just noting the sad passing of Wig Wiggins, who was the US rep leader of the International Crosby Circle for many many years. I first joined in the early 90s and Wig was always helpful and generous. Before the Internet took off, Wig's extra efforts, like sending holiday cards, made us all feel we were truly a community and hearing from him always felt like hearing from an old friend. He always encouraged me to share some of my rare findings to publish in the Bing magazine and I often turned to him with questions about Bing's career and about various publications and releases. The club continues on, but Wig will be missed.
Do you happen to know if there’s still an easy way to track those Chronological’s down? I’d hate to have to buy them one by one from many different eBay sellers.
As far as I know, you will need to track them down. I had over the half the set from original release and then was able to get the other half from a fellow member of the Crosby Circle (he had extras). Are you a member? You could perhaps post a want list in an upcoming issue of Bing magazine? Maybe some folks still have extras or are thinning their collection. It's a brilliant set (and takes up lots of shelf space!). I also put together a set of the subsequent Through the Years series (still missing vol 3).
Jim Campilongo uses this song for one of this lessons. This little clip caused me to pick up the "20th Century Masters" comp. which has the Bing tune you posted. What an absolutely beautiful song.
I forget the details but i read a long time ago he had a lot to do with improving sound quality in the studio .
Are the 37 vols. of Chronological and the Through the Years series all on regular CD or are they CD-r's? Thanks for any information.
The Chronological series is 51 volumes. Both Chonologicals and Through the Years sets are regular CDs.
I just bought volume 33 of the Jonzo chronological CDs today. It will arrive in a couple of weeks, I am very excited.
I just paused to rest my eyes while reading An Pocket Full of Dreams’ by Gary Giddins and came upon this thread. Great timing! That Mosaic set is probably my favorite era of his music, but I also quite like the later years as well.
I love Bing Crosby - especially the albums he recorded in the 70s - including my all time favourite, the 1976 live album. I simply love that one!
Volume 33 has most, if not all, of the Holiday Inn recordings including the 42 recordings of White Christmas. It has Bing's solo recording of Road to Morocco, an alternate of Let's Start The New Year Right, and many more.
Yes. I just read Ken Barnes´ book about him, and I enjoyed that. He seems to have been a genuinely warm character. With his flaws, of course, as we all have those.
You should watch his concert from Norway, one of the rare filmed concert performances. It's on YouTube as "Johnny Smith Live In Oslo". It's about a hour and he does great being 74 and it being a little over a month before his death.
I have it on DVD. He´s obviously frail, but the warmth shines through. A lot of the material is the same as for the London Palladium show. A shame that was not filmed.
