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Crooner is an American epithet given to male singers of pop standards, mostly from the Great American Songbook, from the 1920s to the 1950s and normally backed by a full orchestra or big band. It was an ironic term denoting an intimate sentimental singing style made possible by the use of microphones. Some performers, such as Russ Colombo, did not accept the term: in an interview Frank Sinatra said that he did not consider himself or Bing Crosby "crooners". Crosby's radio show, Kraft Music Hall (1935–1946) was heard by 50 million listeners every Thursday evening.
"In his popular radio program, which began with his floating greeting, "Heigh ho, everybody," beamed in from a New York City night club, he stood like a statue, surrounded by clean-cut collegiate band musicians and cradling a saxophone in his arms."
His first film, The Vagabond Lover, was promoted with the line, "Men Hate Him! Women Love Him!" while his success brought press warnings of the "Vallee Peril": this "punk from Maine" with the "dripping voice" required mounted police to beat back screaming, swooning females at his vaudeville shows.
By the early 1930s the term "crooner" had taken on a pejorative connotation, both Cardinal O'Connell of Boston and the New York Singing Teachers Association publicly denouncing the vocal form, O'Connell calling it "base", "degenerate", "defiling" and un-American and the NYSTA adding "corrupt". Even The New York Times predicted that crooning would be just a passing fad. The newspaper printed, "They sing like that because they can’t help it. Their style is begging to go out of fashion…. Crooners will soon go the way of tandem bicycles, mah jongg and midget golf." Voice range shifted from tenor (Vallée) to baritone (Russ Columbo), (Bing Crosby), Still, a 1931 record by Dick Robinson, Crosby, Columbo & Vallee, called upon men to fight "these public enemies" brought into homes via radio.
The genre enjoyed popularity within the former Soviet Union with Leonid Utyosov, Georg Ots, Oleg Anofriyev and Muslim Magomayev leading the way. Their performances had a variety of influences including ballads and swing and was included in popular film soundtracks .
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