According to Bob Hope, his
grandmother described the voice of Bing Crosby as sounding "like a
passionate cow being milked with suede gloves." To Louis Armstrong, it
sounded like "gold being poured out of a cup." That mellifluous
baritone, with the texture of velvet, the color of mahogany, and a bubbly
vibrato with the resonance of a built-in echo chamber, became the most
instantly recognizable musical sound in the world.
As the electronic age matured, he
became the world's first multi-media superstar and one of the most resonant
figures in an American popular culture that he created. As far as Duke
Ellington was concerned, he was simply "the biggest thing ever!"
Bing Crosby had a casual demeanor and
an enigmatic grace that were typically American; Artie Shaw called him
"the first hip white person born in the United States." He was, in
fact, the complete personification of cool;
and his ability to sustain for three
decades the image of his generation's jaunty youth enabled him to maintain
his hold on an enormous public. But the world isn't celebrating Crosby's 100th
birthday because he was "cool."
The man they called the Voice of the
Century single-handedly created the music we love best and revolutionized the
entire electronic entertainment industry. He would have been 100 years old on
May 3, 2003, and more than 600 Bing fans from all around the globe converged on
Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, in May for the Big Bing Bash called "Bing
Crosby: A Celebration of His Life."
Remembering the man who shaped the
face of show business for the 20th century, many came from the
United Kingdom: England, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, while
others came from Denmark, Germany, Brazil, and Argentina.
They enjoyed a weekend of exhibits
and displays from the Crosby Collection in the Crosby Student Center --
"The Crosby", for short -- housing many of Bing's cherished items,
including his Oscar for Going My Way.
We had panel discussions, musical performances, screenings, symposiums, and
book signings. We heard the Crosby voice all weekend, broadcast throughout the
campus. On Friday, they rededicated the statue of Bing, first dedicated on May
3, 1981.
Saturday night was the White
Christmas Banquet, where comic/impressionist Rich Little and singer/bandleader
Frank Sinatra, Jr., paid special tribute to Bing. Sinatra refused both payment
and travel reimbursement: "I wouldn't have missed this for the
world."
In a special presentation, Little
put on a special showing of film clips from Bing's 1976 appearance on his
television program, highlighted by his televised duet with Bing in which Bing
sang as Bing, and Rich – the man of 200 voices – sang as Fred Astaire, as Louis
Armstrong, as Bob Hope, as Dean Martin, and...well, as Bing. Imagine two Bing Crosbys going out together on Swinging on a Star.
Jazz scribe Gary Giddins – currently
working on the second volume of his Crosby biography – was a featured speaker,
as was Britain's Ken Barnes, who produced Bing's last six albums in the
mid-1970's, including his masterpiece album of duets with Fred Astaire. Jazz
writer Will Friedwald (author of Sinatra!
The Song Is You and the Tony Bennett autobio, The Good Life) spoke of Bing's superiority over all other singers.
And jazz recording artist Buddy Bregman, a close friend to Gary Crosby,
recalled recording a 1956 jazz album with Bing. Bregman was a particularly
fascinating man to meet: he arranged and produced two albums that are
consistently rated among the top 25 albums ever made: Ella Fitzgerald Sings Cole Porter, and Ella Fitzgerald Sings Rodgers and Hart.
Bregman among many, dispels the
Daddy Dearest demonizing of Bing that followed his death. Bregman is one of
many – including Phillip Crosby, Bob Crosby, Phil Harris, Bob Hope, nieces and
nephews, and Giddins – who have flatly (and angrily) dispelled the lies. Bing
was no monster, and he did not
brutalize his sons.
Leading the cast was, of course,
Bing's widow, Kathryn Grant Crosby, still ravishing at 70, a registered nurse,
a certified teacher, a free-lance writer fluent in Spanish, French, German and
Russian, a very successful actress, and the brilliant and witty author of three
books on her favorite subject: Bing and
Other Things, My Life With Bing,
and most recently My Last Years with Bing.
However, she maintains (and I believe her) that she is also something of a
scatterbrain, and a determined one at that. After they were married, Bing told
her, "You deceived me. You acted like a fragile little Southern flower,
and actually you're a tank on the loose without a driver."
We will soon read things of upcoming
Crosby Centennials because the world believes he was born in 1904, as his
tombstone says. Actually, he was born May 3, 1903, three weeks before his Road buddy, Bob Methuselah Hope. There
have already been other centennial celeb-rations by folks who got it right, one
at Hofstra University, another in Seattle, Washington, an Irish Fest in
Milwaukee. But, generally, Bing is forgotten. He died 26 years ago. His music
was old hat years before that. His
reputation was trashed. And, as Rich Little put it, "You're only as big as
the generation that remembers you." Bing's generation is all but gone.
He should be remembered. Today's
American pop culture began with Crosby. He revolutionized radio, phono-