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. The roots of this singing style come from the Italian Bel canto. Musicologist Theodore Grudzinski explains that an Italian phrase meaning 'Beautiful' is an expression that evolved from the 18th and 19th century Italian opera aria. The spectacular growth of the vocal virtuosity in Italy was combined with the tremendous range of emotional expression from Operas written by Monteverdi, Verdi, Puccini, Bellini, Donizetti, among others. Bel canto became a powerful and popular musical style. Over the years the concept of bel canto spilled over into the provenance of popular song. The composers and the singers of popular music gradually evolved a crossover - a blend of what previously were two mutually exclusive styles of music. This was most evident in the recordings of ballads, sung and recorded by crooners such as Frank Sinatra, Perry Como and Bing Crosby. Many of these songs in bel canto style came out of the Broadway musical. Songs like 'Ol' Man River', 'Beguin the Beguine' and 'Night and Day', are just few examples of songs that were sung and recorded by crooners. Of course, many other songs share the aesthetic of bel canto. 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.

History

:"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.

Before the CD and YouTube came along, there was recorded music... hard to believe if you are under 30 years of age, but the Italian singer was put on recordings over 100 years ago. When Enrico Caruso was recorded on the gramophone in Milan, Italy in 1903. The European recording, made by a gramophone/typewriter company, brought the great tenor's voice into thousands of homes. Later, he recorded "La Donna e Mobile" on a ten-inch Victor Co. disk and became a household word in America.

The popularity of the romantic Italian singer reached a peak in the 1930s, with the stylistic recordings of the wildly popular Russ Colombo, known as "The Romeo of Song." Born Ruggiero Eugenio di Rodolpho Colombo, (1908-1934) the handsome singer was idolized by millions of women, who, today, some 68 years later, still remember their idol. His dulcet tones and sex appeal set the stage for the following decade of romantic crooners. Colombo's accidental death in 1934, at age 26, left a cult of grieving fans. Among his most beloved songs: "All of Me" (1931) and "Time On My Hands" (1931).

Several years later, a young Italian from Hoboken, NJ, came along and set a new standard for the Italian crooner. Francis Albert Sinatra (1915-1998) may have begun as just another Italian singer, but after a career that spanned some 60 years, he holds the crown as the most popular singer of all time. He showed us it was possible for a man to sing like an angel and still hold his own in a brawl. Sinatra's smooth, almost causal way of turning a phrase, and his own, unique style of interpreting lyrics was greatly imitated by his fellow singers, but never duplicated. The Sinatra style was a unique blend of defiant tough-guy and gentle lyricist. His W.W. II recordings, "I'll Be Seeing You" and "I'll Never Smile Again" topped the charts week after week and spoke to the thousands of young men and women tragically separated by the war. Sinatra's music touched the heart of a generation in a way no other singer ever has.

Decline

List of famous crooners

Notes

References

Category:Singing