Talk:Bing Crosby

the most electronically recorded human voice in history

I doubt this means he was more electronic than anyone else. It sounds like the strange claim I've seen repeated on his fan sites that he's the most recorded singer in history, but he's actually far from it, isn't he? Off the top of my head, Asha Bhosle, Lata Mangeshkar, Umm Kulthoum, and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau for example, were much more recorded. I think Asha Bhosle's total was something like 20,000 pop songs and Crosby's was about 1700. Surely, there must be many more singers with more recordings than Crosby (maybe even Sinatra and Elvis), and if we take "most recorded voice" literally, many more voices who aren't singers. Odradek5 (talk) 16:49, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Mohammed Rafi is most recorded ever about 25,000 songs. Asha bhonsle never recorded 20,000 songs cause she has got 14,000 total. But those indian singers never wrote there songs, never arrange any lyrics, never make music, never do any concerts, never sells at least a million records. Bing Crosby Recorded 1,700 songs, Elvis Presley & Frank sinatra got over 1000 songs. - Justicejayant 16:57, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Lata mangeshkar has recorded 50,000 songs. Bing Crosby has produced most songs, because Lata Mangeshkar, Mohammad Rafi or any other indian singers never produces any song from there own, just record. -Justicejayant 3:27 PM, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean "never produces any song from there own, just record"? Crosby didn't generally write his own songs. In fact, I'm not aware that he wrote any songs at all. Like the Indian singers, and the others I mentioned, he just recorded them. That's also what the title "most recorded human voice" suggests we are talking about---the most prolific singer (or speaker), not the most prolific songwriter or record producer.

Odradek5 (talk) 15:56, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I have heard that Bing Crosby has made his own melody for every song, where no indian singer do that, they just record for movie, and lefts. -Justicejayant 17:00, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, he wrote one or two songs. But the record here in question is about how much is voice has been electronically recorded. This not only includes his commercial recordings, but alternate unreleased takes, his many thousands of hours of radio shows, movie audio, Television audio, etc. If add up all these into a number. User:Sicamous

...Then what is that number? Is there a reference for it? It sounds like this record is just a guess. I'm sure Asha Bhosle, Umm Kulthoum, etc. didn't hit everything on the first take either. And, if radio counts, maybe someone like Harry Carey holds the record---or any of the countless radio announcers with daily 3+ hour-long shows. Odradek5 (talk) 18:00, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Good points. I think it's sufficient to state that Crosby sold x number of records and leave it at that. Let the reader gauge his impact by their own measure... Binksternet (talk) 18:16, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

There was enough talk on this point, with enough users questioning the claim and none defending it, that I just deleted it. If somebody wants to un-delete it with a proper citation, I'd welcome a correction, but it seemed to me that the Talk page had come to a conclusion on this one. (Personally, this claim seems both unverifiable and unlikely to be true. There's no way we could get an accurate measure of the amount of recorded time for every well-recorded human voice in history. The other candidates mentioned in the Talk section seem likely to have more hours of recordings. Importantly, consider that the cost of recording the human voice was orders of magnitude more expensive in Crosby's time than it is today. Also, I'd suggest that talk show hosts with decades of daily 2 or 3 hour shows--Rush Limbaugh comes to mind--are almost certain to have far more time on tape. More importantly, this is simply an unverified claim.) Deejaytalk 03:24, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Retrofit Topic-year headers

18-Jan-2008: To help keep entries in date order, I have retro-fit the higher-level headers, as on other talk-pages, for "Topics of 2003" / "Topics of 2004" (etc.) I moved all topics of 2007 together. Most topics still apply, such as fame, birthdate, and Sinatra (and Buble), so I didn't see a need to archive the talk-page yet. (I removed empty topic "==discusing==".) Notice how the topic-year headers focus new entries outside of older years. -Wikid77 (talk) 11:40, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject listings

18-Jan-2008: I have moved the link to WikiProject Golf inside the collapsible multi-wikiprojects, setting WP-Golf as "importance=Low" (however, for WP-Radio, I raised rank from Mid to "importance=High"). -Wikid77 (talk) 12:00, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Bing worked with Al Gore???

do a search for "Al Gore"... what the heck, this cant be right please fix it Easmithv (talk) 05:55, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

WP:WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers priority assessment

Per debate and discussion re: assessment of the approximate 100 top priority articles of the project, this article has been included as a top priority article. Wildhartlivie (talk) 10:44, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Nude Weighings and Beatings of Gary Crosby

The citation is already built into the sentence; Gary Crosby's book is cited. User:Professor Von Pie 11:01, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup and overlinking

I returned the article to its condition prior to emerson7's cleanup. I think that the "Year in film" wikilinks don't need to be thrown out. Binksternet (talk) 05:38, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

hello. thanks for the note. however, this is a classic case of overlinking , and i've restored the edits. further, in future, if there's an edit you wish to revert, please be careful to only undo that portion you challenge. thanks --emerson7 05:55, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Speaking of being careful to only undo that portion you challenge... you reverted the reference I added to the Personal life section. Do you challenge the reference?

One validation for "year in film" links is, if a reader goes to, say, 1939 in film and keys in Alt-j to see what links to the page, they may see some further places to go that aren't spelled out on the page.

The page WP:OVERLINK seems to say that only redundant links need be removed. You removed each instance of "xxxx in film". I think that's too much of a response.

Finally, I reverted your taking away of the small font tags and putting USA in place of United States. I reverted your trimming of small informational comments like (Cameo} for a cameo appearance. I reverted your taking away the Academy Awards succession box. I reverted your removal of the TV appearances. The only thing you put in that I feel I should not have reverted was the curvy open and closed quotes around the nickname Bing. I have no opinion regarding curvy vs. straight quotes in that usage.

I am reverting once again, this time with redundant links taken out. I agree that redundant links aren't necessary, and are a fine example of overlinking. I'm also copying this discussion to the article's discussion page, as it may interest others. Binksternet (talk) 06:47, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Date Of Birth

Bing Crosbys grave clearly states he was born in 1904. Why does it stand 1903 here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.230.193.22 (talk) 14:56, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Was he born may 2nd, or 3rd?

I changed to 1904, but someone changed back to 1903. Is there any proof at all for 1903? His grave says 1904. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.211.83.10 (talk • contribs)

That's what's so cool about footnotes. You can look up the reference and see what the proof is. In this case, the footnote is the Grudens book from 2002: Bing Crosby-Crooner of the Century. The footnote says that on page 236, Grudens writes "Bing was born on May 3, 1903. He always believed he was born on May 2, 1904." The article already notes that the Crosby family put 1904 on his grave before they learned that he was born in 1903. Binksternet (talk) 18:29, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Edits from Banned User HC and IPs

1) HarveyCarter (talk · contribs) and all of his sockpuppets are EXPRESSLY banned for life.

2) Be on the look out for any edits from these IP addresses:

AOL NetRange: 92.8.0.0 - 92.225.255.255

AOL NetRange: 172.128.0.0 - 172.209.255.255

AOL NetRange: 195.93.0.0 - 195.93.255.255

Birth date - May 2 or May 3

There appeared to be an inconsistancy with his date of birth, it being given as May 3 in the infobox and May 2 in the main body of the text. As the links I checked give it as May 2, I've opted for that date. Hope this is the right one. TheRetroGuy (talk) 19:52, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Later career as a TV producer?

This reads as if he basically gave up TV in the 50s, but of course the company bearing his name lasted nearly until 1980, involved in several of his 'Road' movies as well as television classics like 'Ben Casey' and 'Hogan's Heroes'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zigwithbag (talk • contribs) 18:57, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Vocal Characteristics error ??

There's something wrong here: "the octave B flat to B flat in Bing's voice at that time [1930s] is, to my ears, one of the loveliest I have heard in forty-five years of listening to baritones, both classical and popular, it dropped conspicuously in later years.

Apart from the missing closing rabbit's ears ("), this phrase doesn't work. It looks possible that "it dropped..." shouldn't be part of the quotation; if so, maybe something has accidentally been chopped out between the closing double-quotation mark and "it dropped..."

IMHO this is a pretty good article, so I'm hoping the original author can pick this up.

I believe this is a straight quotation, as the author said it. User:Sicamous

"White Christmas"

Should the sales of his original 1942 recording of the song and his later re-recording be combined? I think not since they are distinctly different recordings, but I'm curious as to what other people think here. jtmatbat (talk) 13:00, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

If the recordings were very different, such as with today's "re-mixes", I would say no. But due to the fact that both the '42 and the '47 versions are so similar in tone and style, I am saying yes to this.MJEH (talk) 04:41, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

I have added two sentences about White Christmas, "Dating from the pre-tape era... ...tied in with the movie White Christmas"; and have a reference if needed. Unfortunately, I don't quite know HOW to add this information if it is requested or required. But it is a good source, so if this is needed, please feel free to let me know. kane.walker@hotmail.com KaneTW (talk) 14:25, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

FURTHER TO ABOVE: I see that my information has been REMOVED; who did this? And why? And why was it just removed and not DISCUSSED? No-one contacted me to verify, or entered any reasoning on this page to explain. I feel this information is relevant, (explains the need to re-record White Christmas) and fit into the paragraph quite well. Below is the paragraph, someone EDIT it in if you like; I will not bother, for fear of wasting my valued time.

"Dating from the pre-tape era, it [White Christmas] was so successful that the stamper dies wore out, and Jack Kapp had to bring Bing back into the studio five years later to re-record the song. The re-recording was tied in with the movie White Christmas." - (VERBATIM) from [1991 MCA Records, Inc. #MCD-18348] 'My Greatest Songs' liner notes by Colin Escott. KaneTW (talk) 09:55, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

last utterings (last words)

Maybe these are really his final words:

"Let's go have a Coca-Cola." http://www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/3754/finalround.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.147.55.212 (talk) 15:21, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Especially since the only current citation is, of all things, pointing to Golf Digest! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.147.55.212 (talk) 15:33, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Influence on Bing

I have been trying to find a quote of Bing's where he said that Harry Mills of the Mills Brothers was an influence on his vocal style. Can anyone help. It is worth including in the article, along with Al Jolson and Louis Armstrong.--Design (talk) 13:04, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Neutrality regarding Going My Own Way

One line is given to describing the charges of Gary Crosby's memoir, but then a large paragraph is dedicated to quoting Phillip Crosby refuting it. This hardly seems impartial. --Ericjs (talk) 03:58, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

In the best interest of Wikipedia

I think we need to avoid historically and culturally inaccurate statements like "Crosby projected with a majestic sense of intonation that afforded Tin Pan Alley the musical stature of European classics". While I realize it may be popular among fans of certain musical styles to draw parallels between these styles and classical art, I very much doubt that Bing thought of himself as a modern day Bach and I think it is insulting to both Bing's intelligence and the European classics that a broad and obviously biased comment like that is allowed to stand unedited.

Opinion and unsourced hyperbole

Sections of this article appear to have been written by a Crosby fan with little sense of perspective and delusions of Crosby grandeur. It needs to be cleaned up so that it meets with Wikipedia standards of neutrality. (see also "In the best interest of Wikipedia" above)

Excellent idea. You're certainly welcome to make changes that you feel will improve the quality of the article. Doniago (talk) 13:02, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Personal life....

Why is there no real mention that his own son Gary wrote a book that he'd abused him and his brothers? It seems pretty damning that his own son stated in print that his dad was violent and abusive to his children. I read somewhere that Joan Rivers also jumped in and even said he was pedophile. Jeez if his own family members can make accusations like that and for another celebrity to make more claims, there has to be a lot, lot that the public did know about loveable "Uncle Bing"!! It seems this article just wants to talk about he music. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.173.141.224 (talk) 00:35, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

xmas

the opening paragraphs discussing his influence could include his and decca rcords' creation, albeit inadvertent, of the christmas album phenomenon; it didn't exist prior to their activities, and persists to this day. a blow-by-blow description of the historical aspects of what happened is included in the lengthy liner notes of the 2-cd 'the complete decca christmas songbook: bing crosy, the voice of christmas'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.34.145.82 (talk) 19:08, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I do not think it needs to be in the introduction, but it would deserve a paragraph at the end of section 2.1. 96.21.212.127 (talk) 08:29, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

RPM vs BPM

(Referencing the end of the first paragraph of Popular Success.) I know this is a TINY correction to be made, and I'm no music expert, but isn't it 78 BPM (beats per minute) as opposed to RPM? BPM is usually the measurement for how fast a song is. RPM would be specific to the speed at which the record (or whatever the song is recorded on) spins, not necessarily the speed at which the song plays. As I said I'm no expert, so even though 78 RPM seems to me a bit fast for a record player to spin at, I could easily be wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.189.141.245 (talk) 18:48, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

RPM is correct. Doniago (talk) 20:04, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Recording-Philco Radio Time

Billboard October 26, 1946 There's an extensive section in this issue re: Crosby's recording his Philco radio show that probably would be good for reference. We hope (talk) 17:25, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

minor edit - Bing and baseball

When the article mentions Crosby being "too nervous to watch the deciding Game 7 of that year's World Series", it doesn't specify what year, though the link directs to the 1960 Series article. I'm simply going to clarifiy the text. Elsquared (talk) 01:25, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Golf course in Spain?

Shortly after 6 pm on October 14, Crosby collapsed and died of a massive heart attack on the green after a round of 18 holes of golf near Madrid where he and his Spanish golfing partner had just defeated their opponents.
Where was this? I mean, does anyone know the name of the course? --76.115.67.114 (talk) 05:36, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Way too much weight on recording technology in lead

A hugely disproportionate amount of the lead--almost half--is invested in Crosby's involvement in recording technology. Can anyone make an argument that this information should be grossly shortened here and the bulk moved to the appropriate section? ThtrWrtr (talk) 05:18, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Role of Mildred Bailey in early career

I believe this article incorrectly states how Bing Crosby and Al Rinker connected with Paul Whiteman. The article now says Mildred Bailey introduced Bing to Paul Whiteman. My understanding is that it was the other way around: Bing introduced Mildred Bailey to Whiteman and helped her get her job with Whiteman's orchestra. This is how it's presented in Wikipedia's article about Mildred Bailey and also is in line with Richard Sudhalter's recounting in his bio of Bix Beiderbecke, "Bix: Man and Legend." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.231.223.5 (talk) 18:47, 24 February 2012 (UTC)