Here's a surprise: you can now stream Bing's entire 1968 album for the Longines Symphonette Society for free online.

The Internet Archive has posted the full "Songs I Love" album as part of its ongoing efforts to digitize LP collections all over the world.

The album was just uploaded last month, and you can find it here: https://archive.org/details/lp_bing-crosbys-treasury-the-songs-i-lov_bing-crosby-the-longines-symphonette/disc1/01.01.+That+Old+Gang+of+Mine.mp3

I'd never heard the Longines recordings before this, despite reading about them for years, and so far I've been quite pleasantly surprised. My appetite had been whetted by the great version of "Puttin' on the Ritz" that made it onto one of the digital releases in the past decade. It's wonderful to hear Bing do so many songs I've never heard him sing before.

But I have the same complaint as others who've posted about this album in the past: the mix is lousy.

The orchestra sounds lush and nicely recorded, but Bing's vocals sound flat and layered on top of the orchestral tracks. I know he recorded separately from the orchestra, but whoever mixed the album really failed to make the most out of these sessions. I would love to hear a fully remixed version of "Songs I Love" - there's so much potential here.

(That said, modern remastering is no guarantee of quality. I think the version of the rare single "Incurably Romantic" that was released digitally ruins a gorgeous record by, again, layering Bing's vocal in a flat fidelity on top of a beautiful orchestration. By contrast, the mix on the original 45 single of "Incurably" is beautiful.)

Last edited by tedn (20/5/2023 11:53 pm)