A very interesting and informative book covering a rather tortured life. Michael Holliday hero-worshipped Bing to an extraordinary degree. Other singers acknowledged that they followed in Bing's footsteps but most went on from there and developed their own style and approach, singing their own material. Michael Holliday was possibly the supreme example of conscious imitation and seemed unable to succeed in developing in any way other than following Bing as faithfully as he could. Often not just the same songs, but songs sung in the same way with the same style tweeks. A sad story with very strong links to Bing.



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Interesting indeed! I'm not familiar with Holliday at all but it's amusing that he was coined the British Bing Crosby in the same way Matt Monro was stuck with the tag of being the British Frank Sinatra. 

I just took the opportunity to stream a little of Michael Holliday and on some songs he does sound uncannily like Bing. However I don't think this is true for Holliday's biggest hits. 

Allmusic has a very flattering write up of him and it seems that for a small stretch he was quite successful. I'm not sure whether it was sounding too much like Bing or just changing musical tastes that saw a decline in his fortunes.

I have to wonder if the reason he stuck so closely to Bing's style and repertoire was because he didn't evolve as a singer until maybe the late 40's or early 50's and that his experience at that time was in copying his idol. Also you have to wonder if his producer didn't capitalize on his talent to mimic Bing and  pushed for him to cover those songs imitating Bing as much as possible. 

From the songs I listened to I think if he had been given more songs not associated with Bing, people would still have commented on the similarities but not to the degree that they did. He may have been considered like someone like Perry Como, similar styles, maybe even more so but not a copy or impersonation.

Either way, the book is something I may have to pick up as it looks like a good read!

Oh meant to add Michael Holliday recorded a tribute album of Bing Crosby songs in 1962 , i  heard a track or two on the radio some years ago and when i heard one song now i can't remember which i thought it was Bing singing at first until i realized it was Holliday singing which was the problem with the singer he sounded too much like Bing that when the music scene was changing in 1963 the year Holliday sadly took his own life his style started to seem dated.

What i should have said also that ballad singers were still popular in the UK even after the rise of Beatlemania in 1963, indeed during 1967 the year of flower power singers like Vince Hill, Harry Secombe managed to score their biggest hit records that year but Michael Holliday's problem apart from his struggles with depression was that although he was a good singer who put a song over well he couldn't shake off the comparison to Bing because he sounded too much like him also the tribute album to Bing that he recorded he probably should not have tried to sound too much like Bing.