He sold more records than any other pop performer of his day, but Bing Crosby won’t exactly inspire a media blitz when the 20th anniversary of his death rolls around next Tuesday.
In fact, it will be amazing if “Entertainment Tonight” or any of the other celebrity TV shows even mentions the man who sold more than 400 million records during a career that spanned nearly a half-century.
Nor will there be tribute concerts, special CD boxed sets or all-night vigils of the sort that honored Elvis Presley’s memory last August.
Why does one artist remain an icon while another fades quietly into history? In the case of Crosby and Presley, the answers say a great deal about the mercurial nature of celebrity in America.
On the surface, both Crosby and Presley would seem destined for immortality, if only because of the nature and magnitude of their achievements. The two singers, in fact, had more in common than the casual observer might have guessed: Both attained phenomenal success by absorbing elements of black music and selling it to white audiences (Crosby borrowing from jazz and swing, Presley from R&B and “race” records); both seduced listeners with appealing — if not particularly virtuosic — vocal work; and both used musical stardom as a springboard to fame in movies and on TV.
Listeners can argue forever which one was the better singer, but it would be difficult to deny which was the more charismatic and electrifying performer — Presley, of course. Ed Sullivan, after all, never had to televise Crosby from the waist up, for fear of shocking middle America with the sight of a thrusting, swiveling pelvis.
Even in his declining years — when an overweight, drug-addled Presley had become an unintentional self-parody — the man’s millions of fans hung on his every golden note. His ignominious death simply added to the legend.
Crosby, by contrast, was as bland and harmless a personality as his smoothly unruffled singing suggested. His children may have considered him a tyrannical “Daddy dearest,” but as far as the public Crosby went, the man was as dangerous as buttered toast and warm milk.
Easygoing, middle-of-the-road performers, however, do not capture the public fancy — nor mesmerize listeners long after they’re gone — quite the way rebellious, self-indulgent, hard-living characters do. Perry Como, Russ Columbo and Dick Haymes all may have been superb vocalists, but who talks or writes about them anymore, except for the most devoted connoisseurs?
Presley, Sinatra, Bobby Darin, Hank Williams and Judy Garland, however, to this day remain the subject of countless books, articles, CD reissues, films, TV movies and souvenir T-shirts. The roller-coaster lives they led perpetually lure new generations to their music.
In the case of Crosby, that’s unfortunate, for he sang with a seeming effortlessness that pop crooners have been trying to imitate ever since. His warm and reedy vocals his coy phrasing his pure tone and heartbreaking delivery still stand as models of singing that sounds as natural as speaking.
But Crosby’s world began to diminish as early as 1941, with the arrival of a new singing star and teenage heartthrob named Sinatra. By the 1950s, when the scrawny vocalist from Hoboken, N.J., emerged as the most dynamic swing singer (and the most brooding torch singer) in the business, Crosby was on his way toward becoming a relic.
That Sinatra’s ring-a-ding-ding lifestyle was more torrid than that of any character he played on screen only added to his legend and further overshadowed his archrival, Crosby.
To those who cherish fine singing in a mostly sentimental manner, Crosby always will loom large. His appearances in dozens of films, most notably the Christmas classic “Holiday Inn” and the “Road” pictures with Bob Hope, will keep Crosby on the late, late show for decades to come.
Even on film, however, Crosby typically came across as the easygoing, warm-hearted figure he played in “Going My Way” (1944); his darker, more brilliant portrayal of an alcoholic singer in “The Country Girl” (1954) was the exception that proved the rule.
So today, most of America regards Crosby as little more than a historic figure from some distant, pre-digital age. With each year, his memory grows dimmer, increasingly overshadowed by Sinatra, Garland and the other superstars whose lives seem as thrilling to behold as their music.
