Innovator-Investor-Entertainer- Bing Crosby
Many have called Bing Crosby THE artist of the 20th century. He had multiple number 1 pop songs before and after the “rock era.” He had a career that lasted from the 1930s to the day he died in 1977. His rendition of “White Christmas” is the all time best selling song. He won an Academy Award for the movie “Going My Way.” Crosby is also credited with co-writing 22 songs.
I could write a blog listing all his accomplishments as a performer, but that has been done. What we don’t normally talk about this how he was an important person in the innovations of the recording industry.
Harry Lillis Crosby was born in May 1903 in Tacoma Washington, right at the start of the 20th century. The name “Bing” came from a satirical newspaper called Bingville Bugle. The paper was “The Onion” of the day focusing on rural life. The magazine started in 1903 written by Clyde Newkirk and E Strandman with a main character of named Bingo. Since that was Harry’s favorite character, his friends called him “Bingo” then “Bing.” He kept that name as he became a performer starting with a group called Three Harmony Aces.
The first innovation we can credit to Bing is that he understood the power of the electric recording process. Earlier performers like Al Jolsen or George M. Cohan had to sing out big and loud to reach the back rows of theaters. They didn’t talk normal or whisper in a song, they belted it out. With electric recording and new microphones, you can change loudness. Tone mattered. Ballads could be done quiet. Without this recording style, you wouldn’t have the crooners of the 1940s. Bing learned that he could talk during the bridge of song, he start big and go soft. Bing had to have and did have range. Maybe it doesn’t sound important today, but even today, Tori Amos whispers on songs. Rap, for better or worse, wouldn’t have happened.
The recording tape manufacturing company, Ampex, created reel to reel recording. At the time, television hadn’t been invented. Radio shows, the big entertainment medium of the day, were done live. They didn’t have real-time editing so any missed cue, wrong lyric was heard. There were no repeats so performers had to do the same show the same way several times for differing time zones.
Crosby invested fifty thousand dollars in Ampex to bring their innovations, under CEO Jack Mullins, to radio shows. He faced industry backlash for this. Performers thought they would lose their jobs if they didn’t have to perform several times a day. Re-takes could be done before a show aired. Entertainers though audiences would feel that lost spontaneity. This didn’t stop the industry from using this new recording technology. Bing became very wealthy. It gave him time for movies, nightclubs and golf.
He created Bing Crosby Enterprises. Under this banner he did the Philco Radio Show. Remember how big Philco was from the November 11, 2017 blog. Bing also didn’t stick to safe performers on his show. He had Les Paul and his innovations with electric guitar, comedians, balladeers and country singers as well as R&B performers.
Television came along and just like radio, everything was live. Desi Arnaz gets credit for syndicating shows. The Crosby Research Foundation had the copyrights to laugh tracks for shows when audiences didn’t laugh, often called canned laughter. He invested in videotape for shows. Those two innovations gave Desi Arnas the tools to syndicate “I Love Lucy.”
Crosby bought television stations KCOP-TV in Los Angeles and then KPTV in Portland Oregon.
Crosby started as a singer from midwest rural America, but he was an innovator that changed the industry so much that we still get the benefits.
This information came from biography.com, wikipedia.com, joplinglobe.com and ethic.org/firsthandrecordings.