Ron Field wrote:

Would have been great if Bing had lived into his 90’s like Frankie Laine, Tony Bennett and Tony Martin.

I agree!  Bing was in the middle of a rebirth as a recording artist. And I think he had a rebirth as an actor on the horizon, perhaps in both TV and film.  He's quite good as one of the dramatic leads in "Doctor Cook's Garden," and, despite the subpar production values of "Stagecoach," Bing is terrific as a comic character actor playing Doc Boone.  Neither were even singing roles, to boot.

Due to the meanderings of the big river, it looks like you'd be a good 3 hour drive almost due North of me.  A shorter drive when I was younger and only winked at the speed limit laws,  Maybe actually a lot longer than three hours, as I'm now a pokey old geezer who stays off of the Interstate to take the scenic route, not wanting to miss any of the cows and barns and old broken windmills along the way.  ;)

My older brother went to college in Mt. Carroll, Illinois, not far from Savannah, not so far up river from you. I've been through that country a few times.

Of course, tastes and motivations differ.  And I suppose wanting an excellent stereophonic rendering could be high on some listeners' lists. Being just old enough to have had some favorite monaural LPs at a time when Stereo copies of the same albums cost twice as much and I couldn't afford them, I never cultivated the idea that monaural was less acceptable. For example, I don't feel disappointed that my copy of the "How the West Was Won" album is the mono and not the stereo release. It's in good condition and sounds great. But then, that's my taste, not everybody's.

Also, I can recognize that a great deal of the motivation for re-orchestrated Crosby recordings is a lot of listeners' dislike of Buddy Cole, or at least his electric organ playing. Perhaps it makes me an oddball, but I particularly like Buddy Cole as an arranger and as a musician. The main thing I like about Buddy's arranging is that I don't recall ever hearing a Buddy Cole arrangement that made it hard to hear any nuance of Bing's singing. Perhaps others forget about that aspect of the arrangements if they very much dislike the parts of the same songs when Bing is not singing and we only hear Cole and his trio or a larger ensemble playing, like the Dixieland band. A lot of attention is given to Cole's electric organ playing, but that would only affect minority of the recordings.

Pehaps I am further an oddball for liking Buddy Cole's electric organ playing. It marks a time when the Hammond was still newly being embraced by a variety of jazz and pop musicians, each exploring differing aspects of the instrument's potential. Buddy Cole decided not to imitate his piano stylings, or even his pipe organ effects (he had been a virtuoso theater pipe organist in his youth, before coming to California). Buddy Cole struck out in a new direction with the electric organ. If more followed that direction, we might think more highly of what he did now. He may have been more of a voice crying in the wilderness than a

I'm a bit late to this party, but I wasn't late to purchasing the CD, thanks to my still being on Malcolm's email list, despite my inactivity as a Bing discussant the last few years.  My wife and I ordered two copies, one for us and one for a friend's Christmas gift.

Perhaps I haven't listened to the album hypercritically, but I have found it rather a delightful experience -- even though I'm usually a rather stodgy "originalist" when it comes to music and other things.  I certainly don't think anyone should think of this new album as any sort of replacement for any of the original tracks we may know from studio recordings or from radio. I think it mainly should be regarded as a vehicle for letting new audiences hear him, or for listeners who have been away from Bing for decades, to hear him again.

Obviously, one might expect the orchestra, and sometimes back-up singers/choruses, to be much more forward in the mix, relative to Bing, than would have been heard in recordings of the 40s or 50s. Maybe because I knew the songs well enough, Bing being nestled deeper in the mix didn't keep me from hearing-and/or-knowing what he was singing.  And while I might not love all of the back-up singer arranging, most of it seemed pretty good to me, letting a little fresh air into the orchestrations,  As much as I appreciate the role of the Ken Darby Singers in some of the original versions of some of the songs -- they in fact tend to transport me back to childhood walks with my family through Christmas-decorated department stores, while Bing's carols streamed from 10-inch loudspeakers installed in the store ceilings -- I am a bit afraid that being subjected to listening to the Darby crowd continuously might wear the eardrum right out of most human beings. ;)   Alternate choral groups, or no choral back-up, can be a welcome alternative at times, especially if we can still go back to the Darby version when we want to.

I didn't start out as a fan of the Bowie/Crosby drummerbo

Nice to hear!

Gus Arnheim's Coconut Grove Orchestra had a radio show broadcast in California, and perhaps some nearby regions, and these broadcasts overlapped the period when Bing was singing with Arnheim's band. Does anyone know whether any of the shows including Bing were recorded by anyone (officially or unofficially). And if so, have any such recordings become available. 

The eleven studio recordings Bing made with Arnheim are available,  But I wonder whether other songs, or somewhat different arrangements might exist if some Arnheim-Crosby radio shows, or parts of them, could still be heard.

I seem to have forgotten the details of how Redmond came to go out of business.  Did internal management problems do them in, or did it have to do with conflicts over rights to what they were selling? 

I think Bing might have had a few more very interesting film roles in later years.  Think of his work in Stagecoach, as the central character actor who at times fully carries the movie making one forget some of it's other shortcomings and poor production values.  Then, too, I think he might have been very effective playing against type in more dramatic roles, as in Dr. Cook's Garden  And both of those were non-singing roles, even the theme of Stagecoach being sung (forgettably) by Wayne Newton 

Then when we look, for example, at some of the songs recorded for the Seasons album, I think we are not just hearing Bings voice at that age, we are also hearing the voice of his maturity in the interpretation.  Furthermore, considering the sequence on side two of "Summer Wind," "Autumn in New York," and "September Song" -- I contend that these songs are not only products of Bing's vocal ability and rhythmic interpretation; rather, they are also dramatized, we might say *embodied*  through Bing's actor's soul.  I think this quality might have become more and more apparent in later Crosby albums, even if his range or power failed in ways not apparent in Seasons, where some of his low notes are so rich that they could rattle the windows if you turned the stereo up enough!

I really like my early Sinatra 78s, and I respect the craft that went into some of Frank's thematic albums, but the "Rat Pack" and "Chairman of the Board" Sinatra personae never floated my boat, and despite liking some of Sinatra's film roles, I find Bing's career in movies more varied, entertaining, and impressive. What's my favorite Sinatra movie song?  :"Did You Evah," his duet with Bing!  I also think Bing's voice held up better in his old age than did Frank's.  The last times I heard Sinatra sing on TV the vocal ability was a bit ragged. It seems, today, like Tony Bennett is setting the standard in that department. Old Tony, despite some increasing losses in his range, seems invariably able to make up for it in his expressive timing and dynamics.  Hearing Tony Bennett, keeps me wondering what Bing might have yet contributed as a singer (and actor) had we had him with us for another 10-15 years! 

I hope you've recovered well.

Perhaps Bob Hope had been honored for some reason, and it was a reference to that!

If Don Adams has been in one of those tournaments, it would have been very funny if before a putt he took off his shoe to make or receive a telephone call, as with his spy's "shoe phone" on his program!

Despite any ethical, legal, or artistic problems we might have with particular "artificial duets," I think it has to be seen as a tribute to Bing.