Wig Wiggins wants to bring Bing back.
The American representative of the International Crosby Circle, F.B. “Wig” Wiggins does not whip up any hard-sell tsunami in the name of crooner Bing Crosby. Rather, the retired foreign service economist is gently creating the current to propel the “slow resurgence” in the buh-buh-boo balladeer’s popularity.
Besides, that’s a speed more suggestive of Crosby himself, who died in 1977 at age 74 after a nice, easy-going round of golf.
Scheduled for release Tuesday, the two-CD set, “Bing Crosby: The Voice of Christmas,” will mark Wiggins’ fourth venture in as many years to bring some of Crosby’s recordings to the public.
Released through Universal Music Group, the previous CDs showcased Crosby’s Irish songs, his work with the Andrews Sisters and his million-selling singles, the so-called Gold Records. Wiggins compiled, annotated and wrote the liner notes for the Irish CD and the Gold Records; he compiled the songs for the Andrews Sisters’ release.
Universal “has become aware that Bing is marketable,” said Wiggins, in whose home in this Washington, D.C., suburb one may spy a stray Miles Davis tape amid the ample “Crosbyana.”
Andy McKaie, the vice president of catalog development for Universal Music’s special markets, said the company does not release sales figures, but some of the Crosby releases have sold better than expected, convincing him there still is a market for Crosby. His method is to have a hook, such as the Irish songs.
That 1994 CD performed particularly well, said the University City, Calif.-based McKaie, whose reissue division houses the thousands of cuts Crosby made with Decca between 1934-57. Producing more than one Crosby CD every year or two does not make sense, he added.
“More hurts the market,” said McKaie, 51, who has been in the record business since 1972. “It’s the same with Muddy Waters, the great blues artist. The audience is not 16-year-olds running out to buy it because they heard the latest single on the radio. . . . And there are only so many places to sell it.”
Rob Bamberger, the host of “Hot Jazz Saturday Night,” an internationally syndicated radio show based in Washington, D.C., said it is “striking and heartening” for a music company to allow a collector such as Wiggins to play a major part in organizing a CD release.
“Major labels like BMG and Sony Legacy and MCA (Universal Music Group is the umbrella group, covering MCA Records) usually are not very respectful of their old catalogs, and what we’ve often seen over the years is they tend to recycle their old material over and over again,” said Bamberger, 46.
Wiggins succeeds in winning over the corporate types, to get them to release what he calls a “gold mine” of recordings, by combining a love of the music with good business sense. Specifically, he exudes appreciation for Crosby without fist-pounding or rambling incoherently, Bamberger said.
The latest release contains 44 tracks dating from between 1935-56. “The Voice of Christmas” will feature every Christmas song Crosby recorded for Decca Records, his musical home during that 21-year period.
Two rare recording sessions appear on the collection: a 1935 take of “Silent Night” and an alternative 1942 version of the now classic “White Christmas.”
So far, neither recording has been released commercially.
“The Silent Night” cut, whose profits at the time benefited a missionary group, showcases what Wiggins called the best of Crosby’s 1930s period. That is, Crosby’s voice confidently reaches high octaves (especially on the line “sleeps in heavenly peace”), but his styling also has a warm, clear bass resonance well-documented later in the previously released “White Christmas,” arguably the best-selling recording in history.
Entertainment Weekly in May wrote that Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind ’97” sold 34 million copies, while “White Christmas” sold 30 million.
Wiggins declares such comparisons a “non-argument,” because no accurate sales charting exists of Crosby’s early work. Then he added he has heard that as many as 40 million copies of “White Christmas” have been sold.
“The circumstances have caused millions of people to buy that record,” Wiggins said of “Candle,” which John rewrote to honor Princess Diana after her death. “In my opinion, they do not buy it for the music but as a souvenir.” Whereas “White Christmas” will continue to sell indefinitely, he added.
Crosby mostly became identified with Christmas music after he sang Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” in the 1942 film “Holiday Inn.” Not long before that, he shed his crooner roue image and became more the “everyman” figure in films and his perennial Christmas special, Bamberger said.
Bamberger was unsure whether being so tied to one song had been limiting or a boon for Crosby. “So long as a particular music is in the air, and I mean that in the literal and ethereal sense, then people may come upon it,” he said. “We are reaching a point where if you talk to 8th or 9th graders, they won’t know who Louis Armstrong is.”
Because of “White Christmas,” however, Crosby remains in the public consciousness, he noted.
“Our job is keep (Crosby’s and other music) going,” McKaie said, adding that his parent company also tries to keep Crosby’s film and television work marketable. “If you don’t keep the artist and music viable via consistent releases, the other side of the coin suffers, because (the audience is) not familiar with his music.”
Enter the International Crosby Circle, which began in England in 1950. There are smaller Crosby fan clubs, but none as prolific as the circle, which also puts out a quarterly called Bing magazine. Many of the roughly 250 members of the older, mostly American Club Crosby are constituents of the circle, said Wiggins, who is in both groups.
The International Crosby Circle, which Wiggins said celebrates the performer, not the man, has upped its size considerably since 1990. Worldwide membership is about 750, he added.
Wiggins, who never met Crosby, has been a member of the circle since 1970 and agreed to become its American representative in 1991, when the group underwent an overhaul after years of decline. With only 55 members in 1991, the circle now has 300 in the United States and Canada, Wiggins said.
The group is “not just . . . old fogies. We are attracting younger members,” he said.
Responsible partly is inclusion of the club name and Wiggins’ address in the Universal releases as well as a Web site called the Bing Crosby Internet Museum, created by Steven Lewis, a biology professor at Metropolitan Community College in Kansas City, Mo.
“When the BC Internet Museum was born in June 1996, there was virtually nothing about Bing or his popular culture on the Internet,” said Lewis, 45, in an e-mail interview. “I saw this as a niche to be filled.”
Lewis’ site — (www.kcmetro.cc.mo.us/pennvalley/biology /lewis/crosby/bing.htm)contains more than 250 pages, 200 images and several sound files. It receives hits in the tens of thousands every month since he started keeping count in August 1996, he said.
Ryan Foster, 24, of Salem, Ore., just sent in his $20 membership to join the circle after finding Lewis’ Crosby museum. “Bing seems more fun or adventurous, or however you can put that warm, amiable feeling I always get from him,” Foster wrote in a letter to Wiggins in August.
Although he’s always known about the song “White Christmas,” Foster came by other Crosby recordings a few years ago through a then-girlfriend. The song was “Temptation.”
“Sinatra is so big and so popular, even by today’s standards, that it’s nice to stick up for the underdog, someone who’s persona and style is so out of step with the times,” said Foster.
Foster said his enthusiasm for Crosby largely goes unappreciated in Salem, but would not let that deter him from listening to the crooner. For now, Foster continues posting messages on the Internet site, to show Universal that he and other Crosby devotees consider it their “dream” to purchase the company’s complete Crosby stash in CD form.
Reality, however, dictates slow release.
That doesn’t stop the extremely dedicated from keeping alive the gospel of Crosby. In fact, Wiggins said the major debate in the International Crosby Circle is how to celebrate Bing’s birthday centennial, May 3, 2003.
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The Museum of Broadcast Communications will induct Bing Crosby into its Radio Hall of Fame on Sunday. Kathryn Crosby, Bing’s widow, will accept an award at the ceremony, which will be broadcast from 7 to 8 p.m. on radio stations WLS-AM 890, WGN-AM 720 and WBBM-AM 780 and on the Internet (www.mbcnet.org.). Call 312-629-6000 for information.
