ModernBingFan0377 wrote:

I am from Iowa, I started collecting around 2 and a half years ago now, my favorite Bing songs varies as there are so many that I love. At the moment I, for some reason, am really enjoying Bing’s 1945 version of Ol’ Man River. My favorite Bing movies are The Country Girl, Little Boy Lost, and Here Comes The Groom.

You have great taste! Since I have been collecting Bing now over 40 years, I tend to listen to his more obscure material and steer away from Swinging On A Star and White Christmas type songs.
 

Oh, what a task!
Pushing about 6,000 song titles sung over the years, but I like  - Down By the River, The Touch of Your Lips,  Lovely Lady and depends on one’s ‘mood’.
Mississippi is a favourite film plus a couple of others.
Been a fan for about 77 years or so (I’m 87).
Had the pleasure of meeting Bing, Bob and Larry in 1957.
Then other members of the Crosby family including Phil when he was in Sydney and caddied for Nathaniel.
Spoke to Bing on the phone a couple of times and he even rang me at the office when I worked in London.
A hard task in deed.

A lot of the radio versions of Andrews Sisters tracks I find better than the studio version, as they are indeed much looser.

Hello everyone!  My name is Chris Hammond.  I am in East Tennessee and I run the Dixie Lee website/blog, https://www.dixieleefan.com

I first learned about Bing and Dixie when I was boy listening to Bing's Christmas album.  I later learned that Dixie Lee (Wilma Wyatt) was born in Harriman, Tennessee, about 30 minutes from where I grew up.  I believe that I may actually be very distantly related to her Scarbrough line through my great, great grandmother's family.  I was fortunate enough to work with Bing and Dixie's granddaughter, Dixie Lee Crosby Goodwin, who sadly is no longer with us, on getting a Tennessee state historical marker installed in Harriman for Dixie Lee.  

My goal is to research and preserve Dixie's legacy here in her home state of Tennessee, while also sharing more about her story and career.  

Last edited by DixieLeeFan (03/11/2021 5:50 pm)

Lobosco wrote:

DixieLeeFan wrote:

Hello everyone!  My name is Chris Hammond.  I am in East Tennessee and I run the Dixie Lee website/blog, https://www.dixieleefan.com

I first learned about Bing and Dixie when I was boy listening to Bing's Christmas album.  I later learned that Dixie Lee (Wilma Wyatt) was born in Harriman, Tennessee, about 30 minutes from where I grew up.  I believe that I may actually be very distantly related to her Scarbrough line through my great, great grandmother's family.  I was fortunate enough to work with Bing and Dixie's granddaughter, Dixie Lee Crosby Goodwin, who sadly is no longer with us, on getting a Tennessee state historical marker installed in Harriman for Dixie Lee.  

My goal is to research and preserve Dixie's legacy here in her home state of Tennessee, while also sharing more about her story and career.  

Welcome to the board! Look forward all you have to share. By the way you are the 400th member to this board. Congrats!
 

Very cool!!! You all should create badges for that kinda stuff!  Love the site.  Thank you for the kind words!

Graham Pascoe wrote:

I'll begin with a confession. I don't mean that I'm old, although I am (87) but that in my late teens in Melbourne, Australia, I tired of hearing Bing's records on radio because he was so popular you couldn't avoid them. Then a friend introduced me to his early 1930s records and I was hooked. I enjoy especially his duets with Connee Boswell and many with The Andrews Sisters. As for my favourite movies, I'd say High Society, The Emperor Waltz and  Here Comes the Groom.

You're only as young as you feel. Today I feel like I am 101!

Bing's duets with Connee Boswell were amazing!
 

Hullo Ian, from Graham in Bathurst, Australia. Fancy Meeting You Here is a beaut album, isn't it. If you like Rosemary Clooney's singing you'll find a book published in 2013 titled Late Night Jazz: The Life and career of Rosemary Clooney, written by Ken Crossland and Malcolm Macfarlane interesting.

Ian Kerstein wrote:

Hello everyone. My name is Ian Kerstein, just a days old new member, I am fifty two years of age and reside in the UK Robin Hood county of Nottingham in England.

My favourite singular Bing song/recording is his 1962, "Winter Wonderland". As with the whole of the "I Wish You a Merry Christmas" for which it was recorded, I still find the almost fireside glowing orchestrations and the matching warmer than warm singing by Bing and his accompanying chorus as welcome and affecting as a glass of seasonal mulled wine. Audibly, it has signalled the start of each of my Christmases since 1985. 

So far, my favourite film of our man is by a longshot (and apologies for displaying even more unoriginality, here) that cast-perfect, champagne fizz of a musical, "High Society" (to a just ended calypso rhythm, " .. end of  song, beginning of stoooory!") …

... the cementing of the beginnings of my collection of Bing was during 1982 at the age of thirteen when some kind and thoughtful husband and wife friends of the family bought me the 1982 reissue LP edition of "Fancy Meeting You Here". Only my second Crosby LP from the same year (and couple), I was intoxicated on my first hearing and introduction to Billy May's bold brassy arrangements, the wonderful "concept" of the album (way before any of the seventies' rock bands found their fun with the format) and of course the peerless vocal pairing of Bing and Rosemary Clooney.

It has not only long since become my favourite Crosby album but my general favourite album of all time by anyone. The ingenious song choices, perfectly attuned singing, spoken vocal word play, witty harmonies and their overall pitch perfect partnership still leaves me as thrilled with this LP from when I first heard it very nearly forty years ago.

Apologies for the length of all this. I'm sure I'll calm down in time but I am just so delighted to now be a member of this forum.

My very best wishes to all,
Ian.

Ian - we are close to the same age. I'll be 48 this year! 

Lobosco wrote:

Ian Kerstein wrote:

Hello everyone. My name is Ian Kerstein, just a days old new member, I am fifty two years of age and reside in the UK Robin Hood county of Nottingham in England.

My favourite singular Bing song/recording is his 1962, "Winter Wonderland". As with the whole of the "I Wish You a Merry Christmas" for which it was recorded, I still find the almost fireside glowing orchestrations and the matching warmer than warm singing by Bing and his accompanying chorus as welcome and affecting as a glass of seasonal mulled wine. Audibly, it has signalled the start of each of my Christmases since 1985. 

So far, my favourite film of our man is by a longshot (and apologies for displaying even more unoriginality, here) that cast-perfect, champagne fizz of a musical, "High Society" (to a just ended calypso rhythm, " .. end of  song, beginning of stoooory!") …

... the cementing of the beginnings of my collection of Bing was during 1982 at the age of thirteen when some kind and thoughtful husband and wife friends of the family bought me the 1982 reissue LP edition of "Fancy Meeting You Here". Only my second Crosby LP from the same year (and couple), I was intoxicated on my first hearing and introduction to Billy May's bold brassy arrangements, the wonderful "concept" of the album (way before any of the seventies' rock bands found their fun with the format) and of course the peerless vocal pairing of Bing and Rosemary Clooney.

It has not only long since become my favourite Crosby album but my general favourite album of all time by anyone. The ingenious song choices, perfectly attuned singing, spoken vocal word play, witty harmonies and their overall pitch perfect partnership still leaves me as thrilled with this LP from when I first heard it very nearly forty years ago.

Apologies for the length of all this. I'm sure I'll calm down in time but I am just so delighted to now be a member of this forum.

My very best wishes to all,
Ian.

Ian - we are close to the same age. I'll be 48 this year! 

Ah! That's good to know, David and thank you - but I'm still more than open to trade ages and those four years with you!
 

Archiefit wrote:

One of my pet peeves has always been that classic popular music stations that used to exist 10 20 years ago (I don't think even they are around anymore) when it came to Bing the only songs I ever heard them play was Swinging On A Star, True Love & Accentuate The Positive.  It would steam me every time because I'd think there are 100s and 100s of different great Bing songs they could choose from yet you'd have thought Bing only recorded 3 records, least if you were new to Bing.  

But maybe I didn't know when I was well off, as today there aren't any good type music stations anymore.  One reason I started up my Sounds Like Radio show was to play some of that great music.   By the way I have yet to play any of those 3 songs they used to only play.   I refuse to play the stuff they all played over and over.

Oh, Archiefit! I share your radio pet peeve, too. Here in the UK up until just under a decade ago on our national broadcaster's BBC Radio 2 station, there was still a decent string of what had then become "specialist" programmes sympathetic to this era. On the same station, twenty-five to thirty years before, there still existed much gentrified styles of presentation which were nicely sympathetic to the music of Bing and his associates. Radio 2 in a far racier, pop orientated form still exists but as mentioned above, all - bar the shouting is practically  over, now. However thanks to the wonderful UK  internet "Serenade Radio" station (much in the style of the old BBC Radio 2 and its Light Programme precursor, without endless trailers, commercials and traffic reports) and your herculean efforts on Soundslikeradio, hope is being preserved. I have just completed listening to your professional, cheerfully engaging introduced edition of the Bing Crosby Show (8/7/56 - Vol.26) on the Library of Sound and it is a solid gold gem. Your "afterwards'" are also avuncular and friendly - and beautifully suit the vintage show's style. A million congratulations! I loved the music (of course) and the super interplay between Bing and announcer Ken Carpenter. So intimate, gently humorous and cosy! I'm off now to explore more of your goodies, Archiefit. Thanks for your previous "Heads up". 
 

Last edited by Ian Kerstein (09/3/2022 12:18 pm)

Hello Stepo.

I'm afraid it's so sad to reflect the Bing Boat (along with just about the entire Great American Songbook and their singers) were set adrift from BBC Radio 2's shores more years ago than I care to remember. I believe there must have been at least three major music policy and "tone" reviews of the station since I ceased listening in any weekly capacity after the late Sir Michael Parkinson's 2007 paralleled retirement from both his weekly programme on there and his television chat show.

There did seem a little hope a few years later when Leo Green was employed for a short series or two and then some specials, echoing in some part his late father's Benny's weekly Sunday afternoon programme. This was around 2013 after they'd axed Russell Davis' "Song Show" slot, which he'd inherited from Benny. 

I too mourn the loss from that particular end of the radio dial of the gentlemen broadcasters who played as David Jacobs termed, "Our Kind of Music", including of course, dear old Bing. Surely, somewhere on the BBC (Radio 3 now, perhaps?) there could be room made for at least one such weekly programme? For an urbane, radio orientated presenter to play some of the best popular songs ever written, sung by their greatest exponents? Would Russell Davis agree to a return to BBC music radio?  

I, too very much miss Bing's rich tones from radio. But unless there's a serious shift in what's already been long embedded, with the still possible exception of Christmastime, I see very little hope. 
 
I was lamenting at our annual UK Crosby gathering in Warrington on Saturday, how sad it is that in a wider sense, how popular culture has to work this way. One can still listen on the radio to the wonderful centuries old works of for example, Bach, Beethoven and Mozart without being regarded as an antiquity - and yet anything much outside the past generation or two - and it's all viewed as a near impossibility.  

Thanks, Malcolm. Just dipping a tentative toe.