Mr. B, and his vibrato

Styles of singing change with the public's tastes, a truism since David, et al sang in the Psalms (or, if you're an atheist, since Ann Miller sang "Prehistoric Man").  To this day, I don't know what any red-blooded woman saw in Rudy Vallee or any of his 1920's megaphone-toting crooning clones, but they adored Rudy until Bing Crosby came along and made it cool for manly men to sing like men.

Pardon me for an aside.  Seriously, Google?  The word 'Bing' comes up as a spelling error?  Really? 

Around 1953, when Billy Eckstine slowly fell down the popular music charts he had topped for much of the previous decade, was it because fans were tired of his smoothness?  Did his voice change, as happens to most of us as we get older, and fall out of favor?  Or, as previously noted, did a portion of the public stop buying Mr. B's records because a picture of him being embraced by a white woman, and fawned-over by other white women, was published in a 1950 issue of Life magazine?  One jazz website doesn't mention the photograph, saying Mr. B's style indeed changed.  It was a slight change, but the AllAboutJazz.com claims it was enough to where it caused his popularity to wane.  But is this true?

The biography of Billy Eckstine at All About Jazz hypothesizes on the decline of his record sales.   "By 1950 he was MGM's top-selling artist and was selling out major venues like New York's Paramount Theater. However, unlike Nat ‘King’ Cole who followed him into the pop charts, Eckstine’s singing, especially his exaggerated vibrato, sounded increasingly mannered and he was unable to sustain his recording success throughout the decade." Is this true?  

Answering this question objectively will be tough; I am a devout Mr. B. fan.  I haven't heard any evidence that he went from sexy, velvety tones to the sound of that cartoon where the character's uvula looks like a punching bag.  I am also not a jazz snob - there are plenty of folks who would tell me I have no business judging what's good and what isn't.  Thus, I will try to listen as fairly as possible and do my best to be the man who calls it right down the middle.


First, some early Billy Eckstine, when he first began to ascend the charts, even though it was under the name of someone else's band.  

Mr. Eckstine co-wrote "Stormy Monday Blues" and recorded it with the band of Earl "Fatha" Hines in 1942, just a couple years before Mr. B. started his own orchestra with many of the guys from Hines's band.  Some of Billy's vocal signatures - the bending and shaping of notes, the smooth transitions from the highs to the lows of Mr. B's enormous range, the vibrato - are easily heard.  Billy's style on this record and his other popular recording with the Hines band, Johnny Mercer and Hoagy Carmichael's "Skylark", went 'national' during the early 40's thanks to Hines's weekly radio broadcasts from Chicago's Grand Terrace Ballroom. 

Mr B's popularity spiked after he disbanded his own orchestra and went solo, largely due to the ballads that featured his lady-killing vocals.  A string of big singles and sold-out concerts over a four-year span followed, with one of  his last hits coming in 1951, a song that was a blockbuster two decades earlier for another swoon maker; Bing Crosby.

"I Apologize" features the lush string orchestra common to a lot of 1950's hit pop recordings.  As for the vocals, what stands out for me is the way Mr. B treats the letter 'O'.  His enunciation of the word "apologize" and words such as "sorry" and "bottom" have a short 'o' sound elongated just enough to where it sounds like "awww"; "I uh-paww-li-i-gize."  The first time I heard words sung this way was not from Mr. B himself - I had never heard of Billy until eight years ago.  It was from Sammy Davis, Jr., whose signature singer impressions included a good, but comically exaggerated Billy Eckstine (in listening to Mr. Davis's earlier recordings, it's obvious he borrowed heavily from Billy in forming his own singing style).  

Was there a difference between Mr. B's 1942 vocals and those from almost a decade later?  No doubt.  But in 1951, Billy Eckstine was still among the best-selling artists in the country, something that would not be true just a couple years later.  All About Jazz says his vibrato became "more mannered" as the 1950's progressed, so I'd like to listen to a song from later in the decade.  It was a duet with Mr. Eckstine and Sarah Vaughn, one of the best singers in the history of song, and yet it didn't sell much when it was released in 1957.

In Billy's portions of "Passing Strangers", the way he sings, at least to my ear, matches the tone of the song itself.  There is no discernible difference between his vibrato here and that on "I Apologize."  What seems to be clear, based on sales numbers, is that this style of song, at least as performed by Mr. B, had fallen somewhat out of favor with the general public within a few years, though songs in the similar vein continued to sell well for Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra during the late 50's.  

It is also true that Sinatra and Cole were also well known for their up-tempo numbers - they loved to "swing, baby!"  Cole also brought to the table his preeminence as a jazz pianist.  But lest we forget, Mr. B was a pretty fair musician as well.

 

This was part of Billy's appearance on Nat's very last variety show in 1957.  Mr. B could swing, as if his fans didn't know that already.  He proved it again three years later jumping several swingin' songs in one of my favorite Eckstine albums, "No Cover, No Minimum", a live recording of his nightclub act.  Yet much of his recording work of the 1950's wasn't swingin' at all.  Most of his recordings seemed to be the ballads that were his bread and butter in the late 40's and early 50's, and a lot of the public decided it didn't like the bread and butter as much as it used to.  By the time Mr. B truly swung in the recording studio, in a 1959 album with Count Basie, rock and roll had taken over popular music.

I don't think All About Jazz is correct; Mr. B's voice didn't change, at least no more than any other singer's voices altered with age.  Also, in retrospect, the Life photograph should have had a more immediate impact on Mr. Eckstine's career if it were to have an impact at all, and Billy's record sales didn't start to noticeably decline until at least two years after the picture was published.  But 1952 is when Frank Sinatra began his renaissance as a 'swinger'.  Should Mr. B have swung more, a la Sinatra and his "ring-a-ding-ding" resurrection?  He was capable of doing so, but for whatever reason, did not.  Was that his choice?  The choice of his management?  Lots of questions to examine, but we'll do that another day.  For now, one more from Mr. B, one of the best from "No Cover, No Minimum."

Leo as Mr. Frank, but where's Der Bingle's story?

Leonardo DiCaprio will portray Frank Sinatra in a Martin Scorsese biopic. That means that, unlike "Titanic", I won't be rooting for him to drown. "Titanic" could have been saved if Kate Winslett had also drowned. Instead, it became, arguably, the biggest inducer of flaccidity in movie history, but I digress.

You won't find a bigger Sinatra fan than yours truly. Our toddler could sing "I've Got You Under My Skin" before she could speak a complete sentence. There are many who will criticize the choice of Leo since he won't be doing his own singing (though he tried, according to various reports). I disagree and think he will make a fine Frank as long as he doesn't pull a Kasem and have Sinatra the movie character predict global warming. (Pulling a 'Kasem' refers to legendary disc jockey and voice guy Casey Kasem. He was the longtime voice of Scooby Doo's Shaggy, and when Kasem became a militant vegetarian, he refused to voice scenes in which Shaggy and Scoob indulged in copious amounts of meat.)

That said, it makes me a sad Panda that Sinatra's story will be told yet again while the story of a man who was a much bigger star has never been told on the movie screen.

When folks think of Bing Crosby, they mistakenly simply think of the guy who was the big celebrity of one generation before Sinatra came along to displace him. Sort of like Elvis before the Beatles or being a loser hippie before being a responsible human being. Not true. Bing may have been the biggest celebrity in the nation's history in terms of overall popularity. Yes, even bigger than Lady Gaga, Ryan Seacrest's closet, or even "Who Let The Dogs Out!" Beginning in the early 1930's when he went solo full time, Bing was the biggest musical star in the world. He sold an enormous number of records, even during the Depression. Bing was feared by mostly older folks who thought every young woman could be wooed by his singing, and most of the rest of us guys have been wooing ever since, though some woos are bigger than others.

When Bing began hosting radio shows in 1932, his quickly became one of the highest-rated shows on the air. In 1936, he took over the "Kraft Music Hall" show on NBC Radio, making it an institution for the next decade, and the only American Idol number that even comes close is the number of Paula Abdul's prescriptions. After that, Bing took his show to ABC and, later, CBS after he became one of the first big stars to insist on tape-recording his shows, virtually creating the pre-recording industry in America by himself. The only unfortunate side effect of that was the birth of those shows where Dick Clark and Ed McMahon pretended to laugh at the TV bloopers.

From the first time he starred in a feature film in 1932's "The Big Broadcast", Bing was the biggest movie star in America. Even when the movies stunk, as many of them did, people still bought tickets to see Bing. Indeed, when it comes to ticket sales, Bing is the third-biggest movie star of all time, trailing only Clark Gable and John Wayne, and ahead of Jimmy Stewart and Optimus Prime. Der Bingle was also respected by his peers as evidenced by his Best Actor Oscar in 1944 for "Going My Way." And just when most people thought Bing's was getting long in the teeth, 1954's "White Christmas" became the biggest-grossing movie of the then-50-year-old Bing's career, taking in $30 million at the box office at a time when the average cost of a movie ticket was 50 cents. Adjusted for inflation, that would be almost $238 million in 2008, or enough for Washington to "stimulate" the repaving of my driveway.

There is no question that Sinatra was a phenomenal entertainer. He sold a lot of records and albums, had a fairly popular radio show (and some good but not-so-popular TV shows), and made some great movies, including his Oscar-winning role in 1953's "From Here To Eternity." But Bing was the country's single biggest star of three mediums (records, radio, and film) for at least two decades, and maybe three. So why is Sinatra revered, even by those of us who weren't around in his prime, while Bing might as well be as old as the Magna Carta? I believe there are a few reasons, and they have nothing to do with Bing being big before the Lord re-created the world in Technicolor in the late 1930's and 40's (yes, Adam and Eve were in black in white).

First, Bing stopped performing concerts in the early '30's, and according to his biographer Gary Giddins, he didn't resume live performances on the stage until the 1970's just before his death. Frankly (no pun intended), Bing didn't need concert tours to sell records or movie tickets. But a lot of people saw Sinatra perform live over the years, either solo or with members of the Rat Pack, and some of those shows became myths and legends of their own. Sinatra kept performing long after he forgot the words and the music to the songs. But rather than people feeling sorry for him as you did watching Dale Murphy in a Colorado Rockies uniform, those last concerts boosted his god-like status even more. Ironically, it was Sinatra's attendance at one of Bing's last live concerts of the 30's that led to Frank's decision to be a singer.

Secondly, Sinatra's children have played King Midas with his image, his music, his everything better than Warren Buffett managed the first dollar of his investment portfolio. Nancy, Frank Jr., and Tina have been masterful at keeping their dad alive long after his passing. Crosby's children, on the other hand, have mostly called each other names, notably when son Gary Crosby wrote his "biography" claiming Bing was akin to the 'pre-Buster Douglas' Mike Tyson when dealing with his kids. While Bing never made any secret of his use of the good, old fashioned whoopin', just as it was used on him by his parents and by the Jesuits at Gonzaga High School and University, Gary's claims appear to have been greatly exaggerated to help a failed singer and actor make some money off the family name.

Finally, and this is not a virtue, America loves Sinatra because America loves talking about sex. Deny this fact of life at your own peril, and when it comes to sex, Sinatra was, um, experienced. Frank started cheating on first wife Nancy even before they were married, and the escapades didn't stop until he married fourth wife Barbara (ex-wife of Zeppo) Marx in 1976, and maybe not until long after then. The notion that guys who slept around were cool gained traction with the rise of Hugh Hefner and "Playboy" in the 50's, just as Sinatra's resurgence was beginning. John F. Kennedy, despite having a libido resume as long as Gene Simmons, is still a media darling, mostly because of women who wish they had had a drink from the Vineyard, and Sinatra was a huge fan of JFK and helped secure, um, entertainment for him until Kennedy distanced himself because of Sinatra's ties to mobsters. Bill Clinton, ditto. While Der Bingle did get around before he was married and (allegedly) got around some later during his first marriage, he was not famous for his peccadillos as were most of Hollywood's leading men of the day, with the exception of straight-laced Fred Astaire. So, in adherence to our "modern" way of thinking, if Bing wasn't sleeping with anything that hath breath, he must not have been that cool.

Don't take this as bashing of Sinatra. I will cherish every moment I listen to Frank until the day I die. I also can't wait to see Leo's depiction of The Leader, as I have a feeling it will be excellent. But there are many stars, like Bing Crosby, who were bigger and more influential than Sinatra whose lives apparently can't be sexed-up enough to warrant their introduction to the next generation.

Happy 100th Mr. Mercer!