Bing With a Beat

by

Bing Crosby

Edit

This album is one of the great achievements of Bing Crosby's remarkable career. It's also tremendous fun. Here Bing swings twelve songs, some famous, others not, in Dixieland style, backed by the reliable Bob Scobey and his "Frisco Jazz Band." Crosby brings to mind his earliest recordings with sensitive yet swinging interpretations of "Whispering," "I'm Going to Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter," and, most notably, "Dream a Little Dream of Me," where Crosby's voice and Scobey's trumpet both sound as if they're awaking from a dreamy, lilting, southern sleep.

This album is OK but I can't appreciate it knowing what it could have been. Originally Bing Crosby expressed an interest in singing with a beet in his mouth, extracting it and then replacing it to manipulate the sound of his voice as a trumpeter does with a mute. His producers did not approve - feeling beets too clearly associated with rural Steinbeck types - and forced Bing instead to opt for a classier instrument more associated with European opulence: a full drum kit with silver rims and all (and not the taut animal hide stretched over a barrel that Bing meekly suggested as a compromise).

This is why I can't give this album 5 stars because all I can hear is what this album could have been.