Yes!

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/07/04/how-elvis-plays-the-king

 

Benclink wrote:

Agree.

Last year the family sold a $50 Million chuck of the estate to promote his body of work to newer generations.

So I would hope we would see some type of new releases.

https://www.nydailynews.com/snyde/ny-bing-crosby-music-catalog-sold-primary-wave-50-million-dollars-20211011-o5dqzjqmovanhkxesbldcrt6ji-story.html

There's always hope!
 

Archiefit, You are so funny! Love it! Not many people could light Bing's match. I wish I could have had the chance!

Being the gent he was, I think he would have found that an instinctive pleasure. 

I am not a huge Elvis Presley fan but I appreciate the talent he had. Elvis was in a different genre than Bing and the others so it is not really realistic to compare in my opinion. It's like apples to oranges. 

David, I have nothing against Elvis just his fans. I haven't met any Lady fans only men. And the men are annoying! Ian, I watched "The Irish In Us", "Torrid Zone" and " Rhythm on the River". Mr. Cagney was a New Yorker, I being from Brooklyn New York always felt he was our boy. Back when I was 17 (41 yrs. Ago!), I met Mr. Cagney at Yankees Stadium. My brother Michael had Season tickets. He saw Jim throw ball first day of World Series 1981.He then noticed Jim was sitting one section over from him. When he came home and told, I begged him to take me the next night.  I went with him, the game started but no sign of Jim. All of the sudden , I heard the crowd roar. My brother showed me where he was sitting, one section over with no one in between us! Jim waved at us, we waved back. The crowd sang "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and Jim started crying. He was in a wheel chair. Then my brother and I walked over to him, we said Hello he said Hello back. I only wish I would have said more to him. I froze, I was in such see if him. I don't remember the game only that the Yankees lost but it didn't matter. I got to meet James Cagney!!

Blonde56, I need to watch those Cagney films. Bing's "Rhythm on the River" I have seen a couple of times and I find it lovely picture. "Only Forever" is one of my favourite of Bing's movie songs and the rest of the cast are a perfectly cast delight, aren't they?

Meeting Mr Cagney!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Good grief, I think I would have fainted. It sounded as you did well enough to keep yourself together at all. He was an incredible artiste and yet seemed so modest. This must have around the time of his comeback in the film "Ragtime"?  Thank you so much for realting such a special memory. Way to go, Blonde56!

Last edited by Ian Kerstein (07/7/2022 1:22 am)

Firstly, apologies to the moderators for veering off-topic in this thread. I should know better..!
Having said that...You're very kind, Ian, but the 'archival wonder' is the late Lionel Pairpoint, whose 'And Here's Bing..!' The Radio Directories' is an absolutely invaluable resource for anything pertaining to Bing's incredible radio career.

I never thought in a million years, I would be reading that Bing's annual posthumous earnings would have outstripped Elvis'! Even though as Benclink notes, this was due to 2021's single deal.

During my formative years of the 1970's, 1980's and beyond (particularly the fifteen years or so post 1977), as Bing's fame was rapidly fading, along with his personal reputation undertaking a double hammering from both his eldest son's 1983 book and a couple of years prior, the authors of “Bing Crosby: The Hollow Man”, there was in comparison, the strong march of the Presley estate.  

This included new and re-released recordings with a high radio presence, viewer-friendly timed television screenings and releases of his films, documentaries by the carload, a ton of published material of books and magazines, Graceland's opening to the public, huge and varied licenced product merchandising, fan-fairs and many live tribute shows. Whether or not apocryphal, it was often quoted that Elvis was worth and earning times-more many dead than alive.

However, I can't help feeling Mr Crosby's lifetime accomplishments stagger more in comparison.Not just in record sales but in his titanic, near century lasting and historical influence on both jazz and popular singing, a twentieth century recording phenomenon, Oscar winning actor, a years long top box office cinema draw, a colossal radio presence of over two decades, an only now revealed massive wartime contribution, an incredibly talented light comedian, such an intimate and friendly television presence (didn't you just want him as your best friend?), media pioneer (magnetic audio and video tape technology) and Mr Christmas!

Performer semi/ full biopics in the right hands can be terrific (with an ideal lead actor and decent production). I'm thinking of "The Jolson Story", "Funny Girl", "The Buddy Holly Story", “Chaplin”, "Walk the Line" (Johnny Cash), "Stan and Ollie" and "Judy" (Garland) which inevitably and to varying degrees tend, due to entertainment, plot and time constraints, sacrifice much. However, if the feeling and atmosphere round the artiste/s portrayed rings true, along with a convincing and entertaining summation of (or sometimes just a part) of their life and career, then I tend to come away a happy bunny. 

As a film maker, Baz Luhrmann rarely lights any of my fires and with the linked film review, kindly provided by Benclink (as indeed this whole, most welcome subject) suggesting too much breezy glitter and surface, I'll give his “Elvis” a cinematic pass.

 Coincidentally, I most recently discovered Bing himself planned to take the lead in a 1940's biopic of his very own, portraying US comedian Will Rogers. Sadly, it didn't seem to reach must past its development stage and filmed costume test fittings.

My closest friends still laugh (albeit with extreme affection) at my admiration of Bing from being a teenage school boy (in the early 1980's to the present day) but although I knew Elvis had huge appeal, there was something about Bing which I feel achieved a far higher artistry.  

Now we've had Elvis, let's have that Bing biopic, please! Any ideas for the leading part? Although anyone suggesting today's top box office draw, the not so Bing-style relaxed or modest behaving Tom Cruise, won't be receiving today's prize of an iced bun.  

Just to bring this full circle, I do though have fond memories as a pre-teen, watching the 1979 John Carpenter directed, Kurt Russell starring television biopic “Elvis”. The actor playing Vernon Presley (Elvis' father) was none other than 1960's “Bonanza” television stalwart and for our purposes here, the aptly named Bing Russell!   


 

Last edited by Ian Kerstein (09/7/2022 5:36 pm)

Sorry, David. Perhaps from my part of the discussion, I ought to have been clearer with Bing and Elvis. It was only from my intended folly of comparing apples with oranges. Stylistically and genre wise it cannot of course be done. However, with this accepted and neither of us particular fans of Presley, I'm sure we can both agree that both singers were the number one American-born, era and own genre defining international popular singers of their day.

It was just the consideration of their careers, encompassing their personalities, film presences and beloved humble, polite public personas, rather than their styles or genres which gave me more than pause for comparison.

Despite Presley's opposing music of electrically driven early Rock'n' Roll and then his near, later symphonic sounding arena arrangements, I think the passage of time has now revealed both Bing and Elvis' respective genres to be so far removed from the world of Rap and Hip-Hop - and the perhaps less than humbly mannered New York street credential, public personas of their performers.

Although it always amuses me to note that as with the far later rap, both the Jazz Age from where Bing emerged and Elvis' Rock'n'roll, were often both looked upon in their respective days as potentially dangerous, subversive and degenerate influences on the youth.The future Lord Reith when founding director general of the BBC, banned Jazz from the UK's broadcast airwaves of the 1920's and much of the 1930's, viewing as it as corrupting and "unchristian". How times have changed.

Yes, I certainly agree with your comparison of Bing and his half generational peer, Dick Haymes. I would also be inclined to directly compare Bing's younger style and tone with Russ Colombo and 1930's English crooner, Al Bowlly. An obvious later nod would be to UK  Bing singing soundalike and admirer, Michael Holliday and the even later, Val Doonican. He was another Bing fan and firm Saturday evening television and easy listening chart favourite with millions of Britons from the mid 1960's to the end of the 1980's.

I can't think of anyone around today with a vocal tone or style similar to Bing's. I've long felt Michael Bublé possesses more of a Bobby Darin sensibility and the oft mentioned Sinatra comparisons with Harry Connick Jr would perhaps be better directed towards the younger Mel Tormé.

Last edited by Ian Kerstein (11/7/2022 10:22 am)

Don't apologise at all, Blonde56! We are all friends, here. It's a great subject and one I'm loving discussing. It's what this forum is all about - so although I regret your neighbour and brother annoying you, praise be to them for stimulating this little area of debate.
Oh dear, yes. I'm afraid I am from Merrie Olde England. Nottingham to be fairly precise - Robin Hood county.

Your wonderful posts on Cagney have already revealed your origins.

Last edited by Ian Kerstein (11/7/2022 7:29 pm)

Yes, you're correct, Step. Bing was the far shrewder businessman and indeed better educated of the two. I also believe Bing, despite his ultra modest public protestations, was extremely self aware with hidden, complicated depths and a fairly good judge of character, too. He would have seen through the controlling likes of Tom Parker very quickly indeed.

It is pitiful to think Wayne Newton's Vegas terms were far more favourable than Presley's. I know not everyone was as  business sharp as old Bing (indeed in a different genre but at a similar extreme, just compare the similar talents of contemporaies, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton and the disparity between their financial arrangements. Knowing very little about Presley, he does seem to have been so achingly vulnerable. I suppose it may be relevant to what Bing said of Judy Garland after her death: "There wasn't one thing that girl couldn't do, except take care of herself."

Is the oft repeated citation about Elvis true that he made far money dead than when alive? 

Last edited by Ian Kerstein (15/10/2024 1:02 am)