This post is for the wonderful Kim Morgan, recently author of a splendid and aptly-remarked-upon piece about Bing Crosby’s screen presence and voice, and who responded, “I wanna hear it Glenn. I got all day too. It’s a long hot…autumn over here…” (“here” being L.A.), after I asked, “Anyone wanna hear me talk about how David Bowie’s appearance on one of Der Bingle’s Xmas specials was the Thin White Duke’s way of repaying a stylistic debt?”
Invoking the stylistic debt is something that always makes me think of an interesting assertion by Jerry Lee Lewis, quoted by Nick Tosches in Hellfire, his biography of Lewis: “I’m a stylist […] There’s only four stylists, and that’s Jerry Lee Lewis, Hank Williams, Al Jolson, and Jimmie Rodgers. Rest of ’em are jes’…imitators.” Now. That’s a twisted and monomaniacal statement in and of itself, only the more you think about it, the more sense it actually makes, at least within its peculiar bailiwick and with certain allowances for chauvinism if not outright bigotry granted. And even after that, though, one might think to ask Jerry Lee: “What about Crosby?” Because Crosby certainly was a stylist, and he was arguably the stylist that had the biggest influence, or perhaps I should say made the largest amount of aesthetic opportunities possible, for the rock and roll artists. When David Bowie, soon to be promoting his latest album “Heroes”, a collection of dramatic ballads and harsh entreaties featuring insistent, often dissonant instrumental backing from the electronic-inflected visionaries Brian Eno and Robert Fripp, deigned to appear on Crosby’s 1977 Christmas television special—Bing’s last, as he would die in October of that year, not too long after the show had been taped, the reaction among the purveyors of conventional wisdom went along the lines of, “Wow, that kooky avant-garde androgyne weirdo singing alongside the Old Groaner, what’s the world coming to and whose idea was this?” Which is still what you hear sometimes to this day, followed by something along the lines of, “But they do make their voices blend together pretty nicely though.”
Not to put too fine a point on it, but, “No duh.” I imagine that Bowie, a student of pop art as well as an expert purveyor of it, was entirely aware of who he was dealing with in this meeting, and I suspect that Crosby, regardless of his familiarity or lack thereof with the Bowie oeuvre, had a fairly good notion that he was working with a fellow traveler, so to speak. It’s not so much to do with the fact that, as Artie Shaw so memorably put it, Crosby was “the first hip white person born in the United States,” although that certainly comes into play here. Now let’s go to my source for that Shaw quote, Gary Giddins’ splendid Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams, The Early Years 1903–1940, and its introduction, wherein Giddins takes a whack at summing up the singers’ importance: “Crosby was the first white vocalist to appreciate and assimilate the genius of Louis Armstrong, his rhythm, his emotion, his comedy, his sponteneity. Louis and Bing recorded their first important vocals, respectively, in 1926 (‘Heebie Jeebies’) and 1927 (‘Muddy Water’) and were the only singes of their era still thriving at the times of their deaths, in the 1970s. When Crosby came of age, most successful male singers were effeminate tenors and recording artists were encouraged to be bland, the better to sell sheet music. The term pop singer didn’t exist; it was coined in large measure to describe a breed he invented. Bing perfected the use of the microphone, which transfigured concerts, records, radios, movies—even the nature of social intercourse. As vocal styles became more intimate and talking pictures replaced pantomime, private discourse itself grew more casual and provocative. Bing was the first to render the lyrics of a modern ballad with purpose, the first to suggest and erotic undercurrent.”
This is all absolutely correct, but doesn’t entirely explain what I’m getting at. In a conversation recently I was trying to describe what made Crosby unique and innovative, and I mentioned that he didn’t sing in that particularly big and singerly way that other entertainers of the day did; that by their standards, his voice was nothing to write home about. My interlocuter was stunned; but Crosby had a fantastic voice, and was a great singer. Which is true, but which perception only goes to prove the extent to which his approach to song opened things up. And it’s in his approach to song that Bowie owes him the most. There are literally the technological concerns, which Giddins touches upon when talking about Crosby’s mastery of the microphone, and which I’ll expand upon in a little bit. But let’s first discuss the actual approach to song, from the perspectives of both singing apparatus and personality. Prior to Crosby, the dominant vocalist in American popular song was, for better or worse, the aforementioned Jolson; and when Jolson sang, what you got was a big helping of JOLSON SINGING. That is, Jolson’s voice was such that you heard IT first, and the song a little bit behind it. We can talk forever about how Crosby’s delivery—which, yes, he did adapt from the great Armstrong, who also ought to be on ANYBODY’S list of “stylists”—was so relatively relaxed, not so “proper,” occasionally related to what they call “speech-singing” but this is all also related to a more crucial conceptual point. Which is that Crosby was arguably the first vocalist to subordinate his singing chops to the service of the song itself…or, rather, to do so with a creative aim in mind, rather than the goal of selling sheet music.
This was, it cannot be emphasized enough, a conceptual coup, and it was one that would serve rock artists well as they began to write and interpret their own material (something Crosby, of course, never did). When people talk about Bowie’s actual singing style, they often invoke—rather unkindly—Anthony Newley, what with the near-keening testing of the outer limits of a thin voice and range. What’s often ignored in a consideration of Bowie’s singing is how calculated it is. Put on The Rise And Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars and listen to the way he sings the opening cut, the apocalyptic “Five Years,” and dig how he manipulates and modulates the conversational style in the approach to the lyrics. The next song, “Soul Love” has a totally different approach, a more acerbic, clipped, mentholated style that abrades against the hippy-dippy lyrics and the Munchkins-on-ludes backing vocals. The approach to each individual song as its own unit, its own discrete piece of art, as opposed to another opportunity for the singer to exhibit attitude or demonstrate virtuosity, is pure Crosby, I would say. And the way that Bowie was able to polish his performances—through microphone and audiotape technology that Crosby pioneered and, in the case of the latter, actually bankrolled—is utterly necessary to the final artistic commodity, as it were.
Here’s Bing singing a sad song of his time:
And Bowie, singing one of his, and ours:
And the fellows dueting. That their voices blend well together is no accident.
And Bowie can certainly croon, as well. “Station to Station” comes to mind. And not just the title track. “Wild Is The Wind”.
Fantastic post. Further thoughts from someone who’s been obsessing about these issues for years now: I think talking about microphone technique only begins to get at what was extraordinary about Crosby, namely that he was among the first to get the idea that in the electric age, audience was now a ghostly thing, no longer a living presence. He appealed to absences, crooning into the ether, making feeling manifest in his recordings in a way that was fundamentally different from Jolson. For Jolson, performance constituted a sacred rite, and the emotional import of a particular lyric mattered less than the narrative arc of the evening’s entertainment, made up of a series of mystical gestures that always climaxed with Jolson becoming the supplicant begging for the audience’s eternal love. The sincerity of the lyrics didn’t matter; all that mattered was the ritual of the performance, a religious experience that had nothing to do with the demands of any particular song and everything to do with the emotional give and take between performer and audience. And that’s a tradition Jerry Lee Lewis clearly venerated and perpetuated, as anyone who’s listened to Live at the Star Club can attest. Crosby begins (or continues from Armstrong) an apostate tradition that betrays the rites of performance in favor of the rites of the song (or the recording), a tradition that clearly contained Bowie as well.
Morgan wonders why Crosby sounds so gloriously antiquated now, and while there are myriad reasons, I wonder if he hasn’t been rendered especially antique in the last decade, as American Idol has resurrected many of the old Jolsonian rites in new, profane form.
Great piece about two of my favorite singers. Now I suddenly want to hear a Crosby version of “Ashes To Ashes” (seriously).
Boy. Thanks for Der Bingle singing “Brother…” Just amazing.
That was an absolutely terrific read, Glenn. I’m also really digging Der Bingle’s cardigan. I may or may not own several items pretty similar to it.
Bing and Bob: I’ve yet to pick it up, but in Sean Wilentz’s new “Bob Dylan In America,” he apparently discusses Bing Crosby’s influence on Zimmy. The vocal approach you discuss is also apt here, but I emember reading a Time magazine interview with Dylan from the mid-80s where he mentioned particularly admiring Crosby’s use of phrasing, which makes sense.
Listen to Dylan’s “Moonlight” from 2001’s LOVE AND THEFT and it’s hard not to imagine it a Crosby standard. Additionally, his “When the Deal Goes Down” – which spawned a lovely video directed by CAPOTE’s Bennett Miller – from 2006’s MODERN TIMES is based on Crosby’s “Where the Blue of the Night (Meets the Gold of the Day)”.
Agree with what both Glenn and Paul said. I wrote about this whole microphone-technique/crooning vs. belting thing in my book on Miles Davis’s electric work, except I was talking about Sly Stone (and his acolyte D’Angelo).
Fine post, Glenn. Funny, but Bing’s influence on 20th century American singing as a whole has been floating around my brain for several years now – it started when I read Giddins’ marvelous book. Some of your thoughts seem like nailed-down, concrete versions of thoughts I’ve been mulling over since then. Which is why I read your blog. You’re always thinking all over the place and taking ideas a half-step further.
@Chris O. – There’s an even more blatant steal on that album. Check out Crosby’s “Red Sails in the Sunset” from 1935 (a lovely recording), then listen to “Beyond the Horizon” from MODERN TIMES. Stunning, no? If Dylan wasn’t listening to Crosby when he cut those tracks, then I’m Nettie Moore. It thrilled me to make that connection along with the one you mentioned because, in effect, they’re the sort of muscial/cultural threads that Dylan is weaving together all throughout LOVE AND THEFT and MODERN TIMES (and of course, practically everything else he’s done). His well is deeper than Godard’s.
Paul, that’s a terrific point about performance and audience. I’ve often been struck by how weirdly square American Idol seems. I’d thought about it as an artifact of the nostalgic Bush years, or perhaps it’s just my Gen‑X alienation bumping against millenial enthusiasm. But what you say about the role of the audience, and the detachment of Bing (and Sinatra) versus the leg-humping of Jolson (and Aiken) makes worlds of sense in that context.
@Matthew – After I submitted the comment I did think of “Beyond The Horizon” as being Bing-esque, but did not make the connection with “Red Sails In The Sunset.” Nice! However, I did neglect to mention LOVE AND THEFT’s “Floater (Too Much To Ask)” borrowing from Guy Lombardo’s “Snuggled On Your Shoulder,” which Bing had recorded. They’ve also both covered the Gershwins’ “Soon” (Dylan’s live version used to be on YouTube).
Also, for fun, check out Dylan’s straw hat in the Traveling Wilburys’ videos for “She’s My Baby” and “Inside Out,” then look at Bing’s in a movie clip of “Where the Blue of the Night (Meets the Gold of the Day).”
Chris & Matthew, I, at least, am enjoying the Dylan/et. al. discussion that has grown here (very much in line with the original post). The Godard comparison is actually quite apt in that their attitudes and intellects, their uses and appropriations/reference/collaging, are on a similar wave-length and have a similar function in the making of their own art. Just throw in The Mekons and David Markson and you have four of the great artists of the second half of the twentieth century (and beyond), all brilliant with quotation, collage, reference and connection. (Heck, lets make it five and put John Fahey in there)
I’m not crazy about Wilentz, but it sounds as if, as Count Floyd says of The Kid From “Deliverance” on the former’s “Very Scary Christmas,” he makes a good point. And of course a Crosby song does pop up from time to time on Dylan’s delightful radio program…and not just one of the usual suspects, either.
One of the funniest things about that rather silly movie “Factory Girl” was how it made a hero of “authenticity” out of its “Folk Singer” character, having him stand up for all that was thrifty, brave, clean and reverent as opposed to Andy Warhol’s “decadent” plasticity. The character, played by Hayden Christensen, was supposed to have been explicitly called Dylan, but Dylan apparently had his people balk, and the filmmakers blinked. Good for Dylan. In any event, the whole notion of setting up a Dylan/Warhol opposition on those particular grounds is beyond naïve (not to mention humorless). “He saw a RIVAL!” a friend remarked of Dylan’s position viz Warhol back in the day. Eggs-ackly.
I haven’t read much of him, so I’m not aware of his foibles. Wilentz wrote an essay on Dylan’s “Blonde On Blonde” sessions for The Oxford American, which I believe also appears in the new book and which rather demystifies any notion of an indulgent debauched “Exile On Main St.”-style of creation out of chaos. According to his sources, sure, there were long days and late nights as musicians waited for Dylan to refine lyrics, but it was very professional.
Bringing it back to Bing, however, I think it’s interesting the idea of the pop/rock star post-Bing is one of metamorphisis. Robert Zimmerman becomes Bob Dylan (and then on to several other permutations); David Jones becomes David Bowie who becomes Ziggy Stardust; Paul Hewson-Bono-The Fly and on and on. It’s actually kind of vaudevillian in its way – to be these characters, who are every bit as “real” as Marion Morrison’s John Wayne. But then in country music, Hank Williams evolves into… Hank Williams. Jerry Lee Lewis is Jerry Lee Lewis. Bing is Bing. So, he has more of a connection to the country music stylists in that respect. (This can be refuted, I suppose. Hank Williams had his Luke the Drifter; Jimmie Rodgers was The Singing Brakeman.)
To put it mathmatical terms, perhaps Bing is a prime number to Bowie & Dylan’s composite numbers.