I occurred to me just the other day that Mitch Miller's Christmas albums were HUGELY successful and were the best selling Christmas albums for 4 straight years (1958-1961). I'm just hugely relived that "I Wish You A Merry Christmas" (Which I think is really a brilliant and an underappreciated album) didn't become "Carol with Crosby"!

Well, many years from my original post and I still like this album! But, admittedly maybe not with as much zeal as when I discovered it seven years ago. 

Now, there are times I put it on and see it as a bit disappointing and other times when I really like the concept, the cha-cha beat and Bing's singing. 

I guess it all depends on what mood I'm in! I will say though, it may no longer be a B+ but it would still be a B or B- . 

I agree about the 1955 version, love the uptempo and Bing sounds like he's having fun signing it. 

More than six years later and this really might be the best "Bing" purchase I made! I have listened to it, I guess constantly, and never bore of it. 

I picked up "The Name's Haymes!" that Sepia put out. I had heard some of these recordings online and expected that the Sepia collection would offer better sound/remastering. It is excellent. 

The Capitol box set is on my list, I was able to stream that via YouTube Music. And I'm also looking "You'll Never Know - His 53 finest" which was released by retrospective-records. I will have to give the Jasmine CD a look!

So here is the dumb question, which of Bing's albums, if any, would you classify as "Jazz" albums? I sometimes see an album listed someplace and Jazz or Jazz Vocal is one of the tags but really haven't ever seen any of Bing's albums classified as a "Jazz" album. 

I can't  claim to know anything about Jazz! Some of the Jazz, I have listened to is a bit too deep for me, but I have developed a liking for Beegie Adair, and have a album by Graham Forbes And the Trio that I like a lot, and another by The Jimmy Rowles Sextet.



 

More than a decade after you posted this Anton, I am sitting in my home office listening to "Dream with Dean" (MY favorite Dean Martin album) and listening to "I'm Confessin" and thinking how good is sounds and a thought crosses my mind and I go search up Bing's version and I'm struck (even though I have heard them both many times before) of how alike they are and how GOOD Bing's version is!

Where we go in different directions is you wondered if Dean was inspired or influenced by the earlier Crosby recording and I wondered what if Bing had gone into the recording studio to record an album, a little more fleshed out than his sessions for CBS and like "Dream with Dean" a laid back set that sounded like a lounge singer, signing a late night set, just HOW GREAT that album could have been!!

However, all those CBS recordings give us the chance to build out our own "Dream with BING" playlists!

Listening to this now and most of the tracks, I believe, are on the Mosaic box set. The Bing Crosby CBS Radio Recordings 1954-56. [/url] "Pledging My Love" & "Dream A Little Dream Of Me" I believe both appear on [url=https://www.discogs.com/release/3633374-Bing-Crosby-So-Rare-Treasures-From-The-Crosby-Archive]So Rare: Treasures From The Crosby Archive and "Born To Be With You" is on the digital album With All My Heart.

At least these are the albums that I have the tracks on already. I think if you don't own the CBS Boxset and have no plans on purchasing, this is a nice package as it offers you 17 tracks that from that collection. 


 

Blonde56 wrote:

Great question! I've been listening to Bing on my collection of Crosley and Victrola antique style radios. I use CDs mostly. Once in awhile, I use the cassette and turntable because my radios have all 3. Bing sound's Great! Years back, I had a Great stereo system and played him on that and enjoyed it very much! Playing Bing on these antique style radios just makes you feel like you are back in that time( even though I'm not from that time!)

I had a few of these radios in the past, loved the look, and yeah they seemed to add some authenticity to listening to old programs!

I'm always amazed someone hasn't made a really good radio that copies the style of some of those great antique radios!

They say great minds think alike!

That radio is the EXACT one I have purchased, down to the color! I have admired it for a while, but have a few Bluetooth speakers, an Amazon device in just about every room and couldn't bring myself to buy another, but FINALLY I just pulled the trigger because I like all the features this packs. And the sound is pretty good!

As for the transmitter.. well I contemplated buying a table radio that does bluetooth and emails a gentleman who has a blog and reviews all sorts of radio gear. I mentioned I had also considered an FM transmitter because I have the Superadio, which like I mentioned before, has very nice sound quality. HE suggested the C. Crane FM Transmitter II or III. He said they were the best he's ever heard the closest to an actual FM broadcast. And he has worked in radio for years. 

I only just used it today but the sound was very good, no distortion or interference. Now the Superadio is IN the same room, but I took the Prunus and went into other rooms in my apartment and it played great (antenna up) in every room. 

My laptop has a ton of music, tons of Bing, Matt Monro, Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, and several albums of Doris Day, Perry Como, Sinatra, plus all sorts of other artists. Some of this music is widely available to stream on Amazon or YouTube Music, but I have a LOT that isn't available, so listening off my laptop is really the easiest most convenient option. This transmitter now gives me the ability to not be tethered to computer! 

I hope it exceeds your expectations!

Archiefit wrote:

Rolling Stone hasn't been worth reading for 30 years.  Why bother flattering them with attention. 
As for Al Jolson, his style was certainly more loud and brash and his voice higher when he started out.  But when he came back from his self-imposed exile from radio he had gone thru a lung removing operation from a disease he caught entertaining troops in WWII.  His voice had now deepened significantly.  

It's this '40's period of Al Jolson singing that I really much prefer over his earlier in your face manic high singing.   His singing changed due simply to his now deeper voice and also being older he seemed to have mellowed a bit in his style.  Was this all due to Bing?  I don't think so, maybe he was encouraged by Bing's style in the '40's and gave him confidence to return to radio.  In fact, even Bing has admitted Al was a great influence on his style that he would adopt in his career.   But let's face it, all singers influence other singers to some extent.  
 

There have been plenty of people who have commented on Rolling Stone having gone down hill and sharing your view, but I think the problem is Rolling Stone still generates a lot of buzz with lists like this and to ignore such a blatantly stupid omission just allows that omission to take on some air of legitimacy. 

If someone is going to compile a list like this, they should be willing to defend that list and justify the inclusion or exclusion of someone from the list.  

 

Rolling Stone using a new criteria has released the 200 Greatest Singers of all time.Rolling Stone stated: "This new list was compiled our staff and key contributors, and it encompasses 100 years of pop music as an ongoing global conversation, where iconic Indian playback singer Lata Mangeshkar lands between Amy Winehouse and Johnny Cash, and salsa queen Celia Cruz is up there in the rankings with Prince and Marvin Gaye. You might notice that, say, there isn’t any opera on our list — that’s because our purview is pop music writ large, meaning that almost all the artists on this list had significant careers as crossover stars making popular music for the masses.......In all cases, what mattered most to us was originality, influence, the depth of an artist’s catalog, and the breadth of their musical legacy."And yet Bing Crosby did not make this list.....I applaud a list that values more than just a perfect voice and agree great singers don't always have GREAT voices.. But how do you compile a list that "encompasses 100 years of pop music" and state that "almost all the artists" "had significant careers" "making popular music for the masses" and that " what mattered most to us was originality, influence, the depth of an artist’s catalog, and the breadth of their musical legacy." AND NOT INCLUDE BING CROSBY.

Lobosco wrote:

Graham Pascoe wrote:

I love the song. It's on my copies of the Feels Good Feels Right and The Final Chapter LPs but not on my Seasons LP.

I believe they added it to the CD reissue of "Seasons" but it is not from the original "Seasons" LP. It's a bonus track.
 

Yes, it's a bonus on the CD reissue - but easy enough to find on YouTube -