I get a new turntable and dust off some old records. Vinyl Tap #50:
“The older [studio musicians] said, ‘He still sings great.’ The younger ones said, ‘He’s a Gas.’”
I’m thinking maybe Helium, although the liner notes of Hey Jude/Hey Bing! don’t go on to claim balloon abuse as the cause of Bing Crosby’s famous crooning warmth sounding so chipper or high-pitched on the 1969 album. The problem might be with my turntable, or it might be the practice of the times — artificially speeding up recording to conform to radio's Top 40 assembly-line pace. Not where I'd expect to find this singing legend, one of the most influential and popular vocalists of the 20th century. It just never occurred to me that The Road to Morocco could detour into the The Road to Rock ‘n’ Roll. Where’s Bob Hope? There’s gotta be ‘Ol Ski Nose on the credits somewhere, and Dorothy Lamour…
Then again, when der Bingle covered das Beatles in the late '60s, he didn’t stick to choosing the usual suspects — no “Yesterday,” “Michelle,” no Sinatra-sanctioned “Something” by George Harrison (which Ol’ Blue Eyes notably mis-credited to Lennon-McCartney). No, the crooner tackled the more formidable “Hey Jude,” but the first thing you’ll want to know is that, coming in at a mere 3:47, the judicious Bing Crosby did not opt for the full-length, three-minute phrasing and fade out (na-na-na-na na-na-na-na...). Instead, he consolidates it niftily into a token pum-pum-pum-pum pum-pum-pum-pum that eerily pre-figures his “Little Drummer Boy” duet with David Bowie shortly before dying in 1977.
As for what he does with the sum and substance of the Beatles' classic, Crosby — especially in stark contrast to the much too bombastic Jimmy Bowen Orchestra and Chorus — goes through the motions with his insouciance intact and ascot scarcely askew. For a singer who’s supposed to be the source of inspiration for another yearning “to make it better,” he’s instead the one “making his world a little colder.”
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