Here is the whole show and a second episode with Bogart and Bacall as well with an intro from me recorded after Lauren's passing: Remembering Lauren Bacall Podcast - Bing Crosby Show 1952-02-13 (094) and 1952-03-13 (098) Guests Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall
Here is the whole episode with Jimmy Stewart and Bing, It's quite a lot of fun. Jimmy Stewart is on the Bing Crosby radio show around a half dozen times, so just tell me if you want to hear more of Bing and Jimmy! They are kind of interesting as they span his bachelor days to him getting married and then finally having kids, kind of a mini series I guess and quite binge worthy. What could be better to binge than Bing? #Bingbinge Bing Crosby Podcast 1949-12-14 (013) Jimmy Stewart and Carole Richards - Jimmy and Bing sing Baby , It's Cold Outside and 1944-12-14 Guest Jerry Calonna
I have a question for you Bing collectors and experts out there. I'm interested in purchasing CDs with Bings radio performances in good sound and without excessive noize reduction. Are any of the Sepia releases worth it? I'd hate to put money on discs I won't listen to because of bad sound. Thank you for your replies and opinions!
Where's the best place to start for someone who loves that era's music but only knows Bing's Christmas music? I still buy CDs fyi.
Which era are you thinking? Bing really did great work in the hot jazz era, the crooning days of early radio, ballads and humor in the early films, great diversity of material at Decca through the late 30s and 40s, etc. Here's a starting place to get the ball rolling. For me, the most exciting material is the early stuff. I guess I just love the sound of his voice in younger days (all good, but that's my fave). I had a CD company interested in a jazz compilation I curated years ago, but the licensing demands were too prohibitive. Anyway, if you happen to also love jazz from the late 20s, I suggest the CD Bix' 'n Bing, which presents some fun stuff he did with Bix, Eddie Lang, Joe Venuti, etc with the Whiteman band. This comp also had an LP release and was my intro to that world in the 90s. As was the CD, Bing Crosby and Some Jazz Friends. Other highlights from the early 30s are the tunes he did with the Mills Brothers and with Connie Boswell. There's an Essential Early Recordings comp from Primo that might be good wider selection from the early years, but I don't know how it sounds. I don't recall the Going Hollywood series great sound-wise, but it's a good mix of tunes from his movies. Vol 1 had some fun rare stuff. There's also that classic 4CD box set, His Legendary Years. Disney did a great video doc at the same time, which I wish would come back in print. If you like the 50s stuff, check out the Mosaic box set: CBS Radio Recordings 1954-56. If you wanted to track down lots of CDs, the Jonzo Chronological set is super handy. The Sepia series, Through the Years, followed. The Sepia titles that were out of print (and pricey) just came back into stock recently. One covers the Musical Autobiography material- love it for the narration, but definitely prefer the early original versions of the songs. Let us know the kind of material that is of most interest and we can recommend more to check out.
This is a great start. I'll stream as many as I can and find which of Bing's eras appeal to me the most. Thanks!
Is The Crooner: The CBS Years the ultimate word for that era? I don’t see anything nearly this close under Sony’s reissues. This and the Legendary Years box covers Bing’s prime the best to me.
I never got the Crooner set, probably because I got the Jonzo CDs as they came out. But it's a pretty good looking list of tunes. I would have added more light/funny songs to balance the sentimental ones, but there are some really fun ones and it looks good overall. Not sure of the sound.
I’ve got two of these (the bottom ones) and both are of excellent quality. One or two tracks may be included that are a bit off, but they’re very listenable.
I had the Chesterfield radio CD (red cover above), but sold it off because it sounded too bright to me. But I was also culling a lot of stuff and may have got carried away.
My “gateway” into Bing’s non-Christmas material was two things: Seasons - The Final Chapter. This is his final album, and while his voice isn’t at its best, it still has all that warmth and charm that you know. The song selection is strong as well. Seven Classic Albums (box set) featuring: Some Fine Old Chestnuts Songs I Wish I Had Sung Bing Swings Whilst Bergman Swings Bing with a Beat Bing and Satchmo El Señor Bing Fancy Meeting You Here (w/ Rosemary Clooney) Be aware that Bing’s estate has issues Anniversary editions of the first two in that box with tons of bonus tracks. It’s a great way to dip your toe in such an extensive catalog for about $15. That’s what got me hooked…I like Bing from the 40s onward.
I remember I had tried several times to get into Bing before everything finally clicked for me shortly after I turned 23. You can imagine that—being someone who was obsessed with such high energy singers as Sammy Davis Jr. and Tony Bennett, Bing was a bit of a steep jump! A big obstacle was a lack of an easy and coherent way for me to access the material that I was most interested in, or people recommended most. I don’t know what it was but around July 2019 I was hit with a huge wave of interest in finally getting myself to *get* Bing. But there was a wealth of material I was most interested in that I was itching to get my hands on that I thought would help me in this journey but I was having a super hard time finding it in an accessible format. As luck would have it, I came across some kind souls who had and helped me with pretty much all the material I was seeking. And in no time at all I acquired the 51 set Jonzos, the “Through the Years” sets, the 1970s albums plus the albums from other eras (50s, 60s), the CBS Radio Recordings set, and one which I sought out aggressively - the 38 Longines Symphonette tracks. I was quite suddenly drowning in Bing! I didn’t really start in any one specific place—just whenever a certain style, genre, period, or album caught my eye that’s where I’d go! For things like the Jonzos I cut them down a bit to playlists with more recognizable song titles (I do this usually with most new singers from this era, start with the familiar standards and then branch out) and I’d listen thru in order. I very quickly became hooked and the magic of Crosby finally had fully clicked for me and I loved it. Such a wealth of stunning material. I very quickly began purchasing stacks of different vinyl record albums and the souvenir album collections of 78s on Discogs. Unfortunately life went completely haywire right at the height of my obsession and my listening fell off completely in August 2019. Thanks to ModernBingFan I’ve been listening again and the magic has cast its spell all over again! The things that left the biggest impact were of course the excellent Buddy Cole tracks — I enjoyed these and the chosen titles enough to seek out that 1987 “10th Anniversary Collection” 3CD set that had many of these tracks with a full orchestra dubbed in…with admittedly varying degrees of success —— then the 1968 Longines Symphonette recordings were just what I had hoped for and got much replay —— I really loved the 1970s material with his warm and more reflective reading of the lyrics, in particular “Feels Good, Feels Right” was a major and poignant standout —— and finally listening thru my edit of the chronological sets was probably the most spellbinding. Folks are not kidding about those 1930s recordings. Bing was great in all eras but his voice was truly something else in those early days. But there was one batch of songs from that era that left a major impact on me and solidified my Crosby love ten-fold. I’m a huge fan of strings-heavy arrangements, thanks to the likes of arrangers like Gordon Jenkins and Frank DeVol, and I always get excited when any singer does recordings like that. These tracks Bing did in 1938, all arranged it seems by J.S Trotter, we’re very much in this vain and caught my ear immediately and got a lot of reply from me. I loved these tracks and Bing shines in these ballads: https://youtu.be/XOcc4_eZbtg https://youtu.be/jkVtQvQNfyM https://youtu.be/-aVjTGwuUfk
For me, Bing was the first singer to resonate with me. No other singer caught my attention, not even Sinatra at first. It was through Christmas where I grew to appreciate Bing and I still remember the one track that made me want to look beyond the Christmas material, “Little Jack Frost Get Lost.” There was something magical to me about the phrasing, the swing, and the gelling of the duet. Over the course of the next year I listened to some very basic Bing, however it got me hooked and the year after that I started fervently buying CDs and records of Bing, that was 2019. The album selection of tracks that would resonate with me the most, ironically, were the ballad selections from Bing Sings The Sinatra Songbook. With the lush string arrangements and great interpretations. This would lead to both my love of Bing’s career in the 70s and the 50s, with the radio ballads from the 50s being a considerable favorite of mine. I wasn’t as lucky with my CD collection, however knowing it would be hard to find the Jonzos I wound up with going for rarer CDs along with studio albums. So while I don’t have everything I do have rarer material. The Buddy Cole tracks are a particular favorite of mine as well and really are a testament to Bing’s interpretations. I am rather a fan of the overdubs, however a couple choices confuse me at times. Sometimes the recordings are sped up slightly, the worst case being “Misty” where it loses some of Bing’s characteristic sound. Sometimes the use of more modern instrumentation choices throw me off as well. As for “Feels Good, Feels Right”, it’s one of my favorite Bing albums despite some of the recordings paling in comparison to Bing’s re-recordings of some of them on October 11, 1977, songs in particular “I’m Getting Sentimental Over You,” “What’s New,” and “Time On My Hands” are among my favorites. I find it ironic however that it is the least well received album at the time among Bing’s other albums between 1975 and 1977. It took me until last year to fully appreciate Bing’s 30s recordings. At first they seemed over sung and very out of fashion to my ears. However as time went on, I realized how wrong I was and how revolutionary the recordings were. Each recording is its own mood piece, which unlike Sinatra who made a mood piece out of a whole album, Bing was able to create with the atmosphere of one song, although this is not to say Frank couldn’t, this a trait carried on throughout his career. The ballads soar with emotion, and on the swing numbers Bing shows an impeccable sense of rhythm and improvisation, which while he never lost, it was covered up by Jack Kapp’s more pop centric goals for Bing. The Longines tracks are particular favorites of mine as well with arrangements reminiscent of Nelson Riddle. Another album from around the same time is among my favorites as well, “Return To Paradise Islands,” which features lush Riddle arrangements along with Bing being in great vocal form. The “Holiday In Europe” album is also a particular favorite of mine as well featuring some great European songs. Like you, I also have a favorite era of Bing ballads that solidified my love of Bing. The 1951-1954 John Scott Trotter ballads. I could go through a list of all of my favorites but that would take a long while, so I’ll point out four. The song that solidified my love of Bing was his cover of “Stranger In Paradise,” which in particular was just so perfectly dramatized while not going overboard. Bing’s radio recordings of “Dream A Little Dream Of Me” and “I Can’t Believe That You’re In Love With Me” give both songs an introspective interpretation that is on the level that many people hold Sinatra’s suicide ballads on. Similarly Bing’s radio interpretation of “Autumn Leaves” captures this completely as well. There is not another artist that I am able to enjoy any and every era of his or her career.
Like I said up above, I think it helps some tracks, and removes from some others. The strongest disc that continually has good overdubs is the Bing Sings - All About Love disc. However this disc features one song with a choice that plagues the some other songs in the collection, the version of “Misty” has been sped up losing Bing’s characteristic timbre at times even. The overdub itself isn’t the best, with the strings and piano clashing at times. I actually quite like the addition of vocal groups to some of the songs on the first disc, as it recalls some of Sinatra and the Pied Pipers recordings together, or Perry Como novelty songs from the 50s, which both work rather well. My parents boy other gripe about anything in the first disc is that they removed the verse on Just Around The Corner. The second disc is the worst to me, it splatters off badly with the most unnecessary overdub, Straight Down The Middle. Adding strings to the low quality recording makes them almost sound like synths in comparison to the original recording. Isle Of Capri is much better, although Bing sounds a bit distant and muffled. Ain’t Misbehavin’, Sunday, You’re In Kentucky, and This Can’t Be Love are definitely the highlights of this disc. Old Cape Cod suffers from the piano and strings clashing once again. Swing numbers usually don’t cross over too well into these overdubs due to Buddy Cole’s usually busy arrangements during them, and they also for some reason overdubbed some of the dixieland recordings as well. Disc 3 is very much in between the two in terms of quality. We start off very strong with one of the best overdubs on the album, Manhattan. The 3 selections from Anything Goes are very good too. What Is There To Say is once again sped up from the original recording and loses some of the timbre of Bing. My Funny Valentine is a mixed bag, it loses the original mood of the recording, yet it’s a great overdub in terms of overdoing it not meshing with the original recording. I See Your Face Before is pretty good too, but it employs some very outdated arrangement choices. Overall I like the set and will listen to some specific selections when listening through my headphones, but if I want to listen to these recordings on my CD player or speakers, I’ll go with the original recordings.
It looks like we've come to that time again, with possibly my favorite animation yet. It has nice little references throughout, like Bing radio posters, a sombrero which references the El Senor Bing album, a mention of Bing and Bob, a Merry Christmas album cover, and a reference to a 50s album cover; Edit: right as I sent these in I saw a reference to the 2010 release of Bing On Broadway and a set of golf clubs with a Bing tag on them.
I was once at a business presentation by a food manufacturing company, in the early 80s, where one of the speakers was the late BBC athletics sports commentator, Ron Pickering. He related the story of the death of Bing Crosby whilst on a golf holiday in Spain, being announced on a particular Scottish commercial radio music programme. This station liked if possible to be first with the news. So when the news came in, the director told the disc jockey, to announce his death and tell the audience they were going to play one of his recordings as a tribute. The disc jockey asked which one, to be told the first one he could find quickly. Unfortunately, he chose this.
I missed the last two references you mentioned! I caught all the rest…I’ll have to watch again. This was an all original recording correct? No modern day overdubs?
Yes, all of the animations so far have used the originals, which I am happy with. Although I find it kind of funny due to the fact that they did Winter Wonderland and it would've been a great opportunity to plug the overdubbed version, but they didn't.
I thought so…but that album is so well recorded and, modern sounding that I wasn’t sure. Since this is an all purpose Bing thread, what are your thoughts on the latest move by the Crosby family? Bing Crosby's family sells rights to music catalog in effort to reach newer generations
I am optimistic, although I have more in-depth thoughts on the thread that is based on the deal. Bing Crosby Estate Makes 50 Million Dollar Deal With Primary Wave
Watched Disney's 'Ichabod Crane' tonight(on my dvd which still looks good on my 20" old style crt tv) and thoroughly enjoyed it as usual. What was a little different this time was my appreciation for Bing's contribution to it. Found myself humming along with the tunes. I think Irving would have approved.
