Crooner is an American
epithetAn epithet or byname is a descriptive term accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, divinities, objects, and binomial nomenclature. It is also a descriptive title...
given to male singers of pop standards, mostly from the
Great American SongbookThe Great American Songbook is a hypothetical construct that seeks to represent the best American songs of the 20th century principally from Broadway theatre, musical theatre, and Hollywood musicals, from the 1920s to 1960, including dozens of songs of enduring popularity...
, either backed by a full
orchestraAn orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
, a
big bandA big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...
or by a piano. Originally it was an ironic term denoting an emphatically sentimental, often emotional singing style made possible by the use of microphones. Some performers, such as Russ Colombo, did not accept the term: in an interview
Frank SinatraFrancis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
said that he did not consider himself or
Bing CrosbyHarry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....
"crooners". Crosby's
radio showRadio programming is the Broadcast programming of a Radio format or content that is organized for Commercial broadcasting and Public broadcasting radio stations....
,
Kraft Music HallThe Kraft Music Hall was a popular variety program, featuring top show business entertainers, which aired on NBC radio and television from 1933 to 1971....
(1935–1946), was heard by 50 million listeners every Thursday evening.
History
This dominant popular vocal style coincided with the advent of radio broadcasting and electrical recording. Before the advent of the
microphoneA microphone is an acoustic-to-electric transducer or sensor that converts sound into an electrical signal. In 1877, Emile Berliner invented the first microphone used as a telephone voice transmitter...
, popular singers like
Al JolsonAl Jolson was an American singer, comedian and actor. In his heyday, he was dubbed "The World's Greatest Entertainer"....
had to project to the rear seats of a theater, as did opera singers, which made for a very loud vocal style. The microphone made possible the more personal style.
Al BowllyAlbert Allick Bowlly was a Southern-African singer, songwriter, composer and band leader, who became a popular Jazz crooner during the 1930s in the United Kingdom and later, in the United States of America. He recorded more than 1,000 records between 1927 and 1941...
and
Gene AustinGene Austin was an American singer and songwriter, one of the first "crooners". His 1920s compositions "When My Sugar Walks Down the Street" and "The Lonesome Road" became pop and jazz standards.-Career:...
are often credited as inventors of the crooning style but
Rudy ValléeRudy Vallée was an American singer, actor, bandleader, and entertainer.-Early life:Born Hubert Prior Vallée in Island Pond, Vermont, the son of Charles Alphonse and Catherine Lynch Vallée...
became far more popular, beginning from 1928. He could be heard by anyone with a phonograph or a radio.
- "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'ConnellWilliam Henry O'Connell was an American cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Boston from 1907 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1911.-Early life:...
of
BostonBoston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
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 TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
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
tenorThe tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
(Vallée) to
baritoneBaritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
(
Russ ColumboRuggiero Eugenio di Rodolpho Colombo , known as Russ Columbo, was an American singer, violinist and actor, most famous for his signature tune, "You Call It Madness, But I Call It Love", his compositions "Prisoner of Love" and "Too Beautiful For Words", and the legend surrounding his early...
,
Bing CrosbyHarry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....
). 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 UnionThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
with
Leonid UtyosovLeonid Osipovich Utyosov or Utesov ; real name Lazar Vaysbeyn or Weissbein , was a famous Soviet jazz singer and comic actor of jewish origin, who became the first pop singer to be awarded the prestigious title of People's Artist of the USSR .-Biography:Leonid Utyosov was brought up in Odessa...
,
Georg OtsGeorg Ots, People's Artist of the USSR was an Estonian opera singer...
,
Oleg AnofriyevOleg Andreyevich Anofriyev is a Soviet and Russian stage and screen actor, voice actor, singer, songwriter, film director, poet. He was born in Gelendzhik, but spent all his life in Moscow and graduated from Moscow Art Theatre in 1954...
and Muslim Magomayev leading the way. Their performances had a variety of influences including ballads and swing and was included in popular film soundtracks.
Decline
After 1954 popular music became dominated by other styles, especially rock 'n' roll, while the music of latter-day crooners such as
Perry ComoPierino Ronald "Perry" Como was an American singer and television personality. During a career spanning more than half a century he recorded exclusively for the RCA Victor label after signing with them in 1943. "Mr...
and
Matt MonroMatt Monro was an English singer who became one of the most popular entertainers on the international music scene during the 1960s...
was recategorized as
easy listeningEasy listening is a broad style of popular music and radio format that emerged in the 1950s, evolving out of big band music, and related to MOR music as played on many AM radio stations. It encompasses the exotica, beautiful music, light music, lounge music, ambient music, and space age pop genres...
or adult contemporary. Crooners have remained popular among fans of traditional pop music, with contemporary performers such as
Tony BennettTony Bennett is an American singer of popular music, standards, show tunes, and jazz....
,
Barry ManilowBarry Manilow is an American singer-songwriter, musician, arranger, producer, conductor, and performer, best known for such recordings as "Could It Be Magic", "Mandy", "Can't Smile Without You", and "Copacabana ."...
,
Michael StipeJohn Michael Stipe is an American singer and lyricist. He was the lead vocalist of the alternative rock band R.E.M.Stipe is noted and occasionally parodied for the "mumbling" style of his early career as well as his social and political activism. He was in charge of R.E.M.'s visual image; often...
,
MorrisseySteven Patrick Morrissey , known as Morrissey, is an English singer and lyricist. He rose to prominence in the 1980s as the lyricist and vocalist of the alternative rock band The Smiths. The band was highly successful in the United Kingdom but broke up in 1987, and Morrissey began a solo career,...
,
Harry Connick, Jr.Joseph Harry Fowler Connick, Jr. is an American singer, big-band leader/conductor, pianist, actor, and composer. He has sold over 25 million albums worldwide. Connick is ranked among the top 60 best-selling male artists in the United States by the Recording Industry Association of America, with...
,
Michael BubléMichael Steven Bublé is a Canadian singer. He has won several awards, including three Grammy Awards and multiple Juno Awards. His first album reached the top ten in Canada and the UK. He found worldwide commercial success with his 2005 album It's Time, and his 2007 album Call Me Irresponsible was...
,
Neil HannonNeil Hannon is a Northern Irish singer and songwriter, best known as the creator and frontman of the chamber pop group The Divine Comedy. The band's official website even goes so far as to say, "The Divine Comedy is Neil Hannon," and Hannon is quoted in an interview as saying, "The Divine Comedy...
and
Engelbert HumperdinckEngelbert Humperdinck is a British pop singer, best known for his hits including "Release Me " and "After the Lovin'" as well as "The Last Waltz" .-Early life:...
keeping the form alive. The term is rarely used to describe a female singer, although
Mildred BaileyMildred Bailey was a popular and influential American jazz singer during the 1930s, known as "The Rockin' Chair Lady" and "Mrs. Swing"...
's pre-swing records as well as Helen Rowland are often considered part of the 'crooning' style.
Bing CrosbyHarry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....
,
Frank SinatraFrancis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
,
Dick PowellRichard Ewing "Dick" Powell was an American singer, actor, producer, director and studio boss.Despite the same last name he was not related to William Powell, Eleanor Powell or Jane Powell.-Biography:...
,
Nat King ColeNathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...
,
Andy WilliamsHoward Andrew "Andy" Williams is an American singer who has recorded 18 Gold- and three Platinum-certified albums. He hosted The Andy Williams Show, a TV variety show, from 1962 to 1971, as well as numerous television specials, and owns his own theater, the Moon River Theatre in Branson, Missouri,...
,
Bobby DarinBobby Darin , born Walden Robert Cassotto, was an American singer, actor and musician.Darin performed in a range of music genres, including pop, rock, jazz, folk and country...
and
Jimmy DuranteJames Francis "Jimmy" Durante was an American singer, pianist, comedian and actor. His distinctive clipped gravelly speech, comic language butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and large nose helped make him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s...
incorporated other popular styles into their music, such as
bluesBlues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
,
dixielandDixieland music, sometimes referred to as Hot jazz, Early Jazz or New Orleans jazz, is a style of jazz music which developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century, and was spread to Chicago and New York City by New Orleans bands in the 1910s.Well-known jazz standard songs from the...
and even native Hawaiian music.