Welcome to the board Paul.

I suspect that you might be referring to David's post on his "Bing Crosby News Archive" blog here http://bingfan03.blogspot.com/search?q=sweet+leilani

Not too certain about the "rant" - shall we call it an honestly held opinion on David's part?
But his headline  - "Songs That Bing Ruined" is misleading, because he then concludes by saying "One common thread on my list is that Bing is never at fault, it's ancillary elements rearing their unattractive heads."

So, despite the impression given by the headline, the conclusion is that Bing didn't ruin them - he only participated in a recording ruined by others, whether arrangers, producers et al. Until I saw the conclusion I was about to send a couple of ICBMs in David's direction!  But I agree 100% (1000% if that was statistically possible) about the intro. to Sweet Leilani. 

I for one would do battle with David though about his conclusions on "Yes Indeed" and the participation of Connie Boswell. A wonderful pairing. And I am not with him on some of his other comments. I can seenothing to dislike in any part of "Deep In The Heart Of Texas", but we all have our own views and tastes. 

Your solution, Paul, in the remix that you have produced, is interesting and it would be good to have some comments, for, against, or neutral, though I personally am not in favour of too much meddling with originals - I have those which I don't like, or like less - but just don't play them so much. Once heard, it's difficult to forget the original. And I do have respect for the intentions of the original artists even if I might not like them.

 

Fascinating to read what "does it" - or otherwise - for different people. I have always loved the work that Bing did with Connie Boswell. "That's A'Plenty" is in my top 20 "Desert-Island-Bing" tracks.

"Deep in the Heart of Texas" is fun. I refer my honourable friends to the comments Bing himself made about the recording session in his spoken introduction to the track on the "Musical Autobiography" album.

Another one from me... I can't stand the arrangement of "Georgia on my Mind" from the "Southern Memoir" album...

The article I shared by Candace Scott does offer some thought provoking opinions, and I agree a bad Bing recording is better than some people's best recording. If I had to come up with one song that was poor because of Bing it would be "Begin The Beguine". Bing's voice was just not strong enough when the recording was made. I think even the key could have been off.

Also Bing should have re-recorded his entire country album he did around 1963, when it was obvious he had a cold throughout  the record. The song choice was great, but some of the album just sounds bad.

Bing also said that Merle Oberon told him that he had yet to record a Cole Porter song - hence "Begin The Beguine". This wasn't quite true... To be fair, there aren't many of them, but they started with "I'm In Love Again" with Whiteman in 1927, "Let's Do It" with the Dorseys in '28 and then again in '29. "You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To" also crops up in '42, a couple of years before "Begin the Beguine".

Apologies if I've missed any...

(By the way, please don't think I had this information at my finger-tips - it's all thanks to the fantastic on-line resources available via the links on the Crosby Fan World home page...)

Last edited by jeremyrose (07/7/2015 8:01 pm)

I'd never thought about the possible double-meaning of Cole Porter's comment - interesting. "Begin the Beguine" certainly has quite a vocal range and would have sounded great sung by the early 30s Bing. (By the way, I was mistaken in my previous post. "You'd Be So Nice..." isn't a commercial recording, so apart from the two 20s Cole Porter recordings, Merle was right..!)

Last edited by jeremyrose (07/7/2015 8:13 pm)

I believe it was more or less standard for Hollywood studios at the time to buy the rights to musicals, use the name, bits of the plot, rearrange the plot around the leads, abandon much of the music (so saving on rights) and employ their salaried staff musicians to write substitute songs.

Compare almost any Broadway show of the 1930s and into the 40s with the Hollywood version and you will find glaring differences, with perhaps only one or two major song "hits" retained.

Most of the "big name" song writers suffered. Rodgers and Hammerstein rebelled and took total control via the "Screen Guild" organisation so that by the time of their big productions the films more truly reflected the stage originals. 
 

The country album recorded by Bing in 1963, released in 1965 I thought sounded okay as it turned out ,as I am a fan of country music from that era, i thought Bing's effort was one of the best crossover pop country albums from that era that probably would have sold better had it not been on the same Capitol record  label that the Beatles and the Beach Boys were on obviously those two groups were going to get better promotion as they were huge at the time.