Monday, December 14, 2009

Rock It, Bing


Pretty much exactly what one sees at League HQ come Christmas time.

Leaguers may not know, but I once had an affinity for the vocal stylings of Mr. Bing Crosby. It has greatly informed my approach to singing Christmas Carols. Except... I can't sing. So... it gets interesting.

This clip is from "Holiday Inn", which will run on cable over the Holidays. There are some seriously dodgy moments in the movie when it comes to race-relations of the time, and some versions cut out a particularly questionable sequence (the film loses nothing, and its about as offensive of a scene as you're likely to find).

Anyhow, Crosby's cover of "White Christmas" is one of the best selling records of all time, and, in fact, spawned a movie entitled "White Christmas", also starring Crosby. Both are a good way to kill an hour or so over the Holidays.

Crosby was considered a bit of a heart-throb in his day, and had a mind-blowingly long career, spanning around 5 full decades, dominating the charts for much of the pre-Rock-n'Roll era. He was, in fact, a hero of Sinatra's before Sinatra was Sinatra.

Anyhow, here's Bing and Bowie.



Throw in David Byrne, and this video would literally melt my brain.

2 comments:

Nathan said...

From 1944 to 1948, Bing Crosby was the top male star in Hollywood, in terms of box office.

The League said...

I'm a fan of the guy's work. I understand his personal life may have had issues, but I own a Bing Crosby CD box set and will watch his movies (aside from that Robin and the Seve Hoods flick. For some reason, I can't make it through that one).