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1 of 1- David Lobosco
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Carroll Gibbons - We're A Couple Of Soldiers
Bing recorded this song for Brunswick, and no one involved in the recording session cared for the song, There is a blooper that shows this. Anyways, Carroll Gibbons and his Savoy Hotel Opheans made a nice recording of it in 1932 with a Les Allen vocal...
Last edited by David Lobosco (04/10/2026 8:05 pm)
- Aaron Tickner
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Re: Carroll Gibbons - We're A Couple Of Soldiers
From the outset, the brisker tempo is much more engaging than the arrangment used for Bing.What a pity this version didn't employ Bing. Les Allen is a little stilted and lacks the passion that Bing puts into the song. Some great playing from the orchestra in the instrumental interlude.
- David Lobosco
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Re: Carroll Gibbons - We're A Couple Of Soldiers
Aaron Tickner wrote:
From the outset, the brisker tempo is much more engaging than the arrangment used for Bing.What a pity this version didn't employ Bing. Les Allen is a little stilted and lacks the passion that Bing puts into the song. Some great playing from the orchestra in the instrumental interlude.
It really is kind of a clinker of a song, but I agree with you the tempo is good but Les Allen, as good as he was in his own right, was no Bing Crosby.
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Thread Starter- STEPO
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Re: Carroll Gibbons - We're A Couple Of Soldiers
No wonder Bing didn't include it on his musical autobiography box set.
Last edited by STEPO (07/10/2026 12:00 am)
- Ian Kerstein
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Re: Carroll Gibbons - We're A Couple Of Soldiers
Oh this is lovely!
I'm a real sucker for the UK British dance bands of this era and some of their more formal "vocal refrains".
I think if anything, Bing's version gives this trifle of a song far more than it deserves with his incredible artistry. Indeed, I can see why he didn't include it in his Musical Autobiography.
Carroll Gibbons was the first sound my late grandmother remembered emerging from "The Wireless" when aged fourteen, national BBC radio was introduced to the Nottingham (the Midlands) area of the UK in 1925. Her father, a Victorian, born in 1855 was astounded and remarked on the fact that wasn't it incredible that there they were, sitting in a little Nottingham village, listening to music being played from a London hotel, two hours and a hundred miles away. It was and it is.
Last edited by Ian Kerstein (Yesterday 4:23 am)