Bing Crosby

Bing Crosby0:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne, and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. For rights reasons, the music is shorter than on the original broadcast. The presenter is Roy Plomley. I hope you enjoy listening.

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On our desert island this week is an American entertainer who's been part of all our lives.

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He's made more records than anyone ever has. He starred in Getting On for 100 films. He's still hard at work and indestructible. It's Bing Crosby.

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Uh Dr. Crosby, yeah.

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I'm not all that hard at work, uh it's Roy. I do a little work now and then, but I mostly hunt, fish.

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Shoot and play golf and travel and have fun with the children. Very nice too.

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Taking away from all that, could you endure loneliness?

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If you have oh yes, I can get along by myself quite well, entertain myself.

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I love to ruminate like all old cadges do, you know. You've chosen these eight discs, Bing. What would you want music to do for you on the island? Evoke the past, bring you great performances? These these records that I've chosen would both entertain

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And I think they create certain moods in me when uh when I play them. What's the first one you've chosen?

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I'd open up with something lively, and one of the most lively records I know of.

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It's a record that was made by my brother Bob's band, the Bob Crosby Bobcat.

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And uh it's called South Rampart Street Parade.

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And I think this is a wonderful arrangement and it's very, very exciting to me to hear this record.

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South Rampart Street Parade by Bob Crosby and the Bobcats, Keeping It in the Family. What's your second disc?

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I've always been a great listener, although I don't know anything about classical music of practically everything that Claude Debussy wrote.

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But I think the one that's most listenable to me and and the most easily understood, and it's a record that creates a good deal of peace.

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If I'm a little upset, a little restless. It's his guardaloon.

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Debussy's Claire de Lune played by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Stanley Black.

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Harry Lillis Crosby, born at Tacoma in the state of Washington. Crosby is a Scandinavian name from way back. It must be way, way back. I thought it was English.

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Because my father's family came from England at the time of

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Well, the Mayflower, really. We're descended from Edwin Brewster, who was a Plymouth elder, I believe.

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You were nicknamed Bing after a character in a comic strip.

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Oh, there was this comic strip called The Bingville Bugle.

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And the leading character was sort of a

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A trap or a tin can on his head.

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And they called him Bingo. And there was something about the ears I gathered there. And his ears looked something like mine do now. They were rather prominent, looked like a taxi with both doors open.

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Was your family musical? All of them, yeah. Father played the guitar, my mother the piano. They appeared in a lot of amateur productions like Gilbert and Sullivan and things of that nature. And we always had music in the house.

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And we always had

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He used to sing at the family musical evening.

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Everybody's saying, yeah. You were going to be a lawyer, were you not? I was studying law here when I

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Lawyer

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Finished uh two years college. Yes, and then the musical activities became more important. Well, I had a little band. We were playing for dances. It was a college town and uh

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Also had a job a little later on while I was still in school at a dance hall and then uh at a Chinese restaurant. So we were making enough of an income to justify me

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Forgetting about the study of law, I thought. You set off with a musical friend, Al Rinker, to to make your fortune. How did you envisage doing that, in Vaudeville or with bands or bands?

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We are in

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Terribly keen about bands. We had the first records that were available in Spokane, my hometown.

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When they arrived at the music store, we'd be there waiting.

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The bands that were then popular, like Whiteman and Rodemick and Jack Drake and the Cotton Pickers.

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And we had all their records and we imitated them. We copied their arrangements and that's what we played.

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That was pretty good experience, that small-time variety. Yeah, we played at the smalltime variety for a while. We finally finished up playing in the best, best vaudeville in the country, the Keys Circuit. Yes.

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And then Whiteman added you to his compliments.

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Well, that was a great, great step for us because we knew all those musicians at any band by reputation.

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And just to be around these guys was

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Was payment enough for us we'd have worked for nothing.

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Yeah, and with musicians such as Bider Bick, the Dorsey Brothers, Venuti and Lang.

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He had every great musician he could get, and he added.

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That volatile songwriter Harry Barris. You call it the rhythm boy. That's right. Three of it.

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In those days he was something of a hellraiser big.

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No, I used to love to go to the nightclubs up in Harlem and uh

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After work, that would be 11 o'clock, 12 o'clock. We'd go up there, we'd get home till three and four. Not every night, but many nights,'cause there was an awful lot of talent up there. The Duke was playing up there, Ellington.

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Cab Calloway, lots of great soloists, singers, but it never interfered with my work in any way. I never missed any shows.

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Why did the rhythm boys break up? Why did you start off on your own? Well, Paimon let us go after.

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We've been with him two or three years.

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He was going into a different kind of a band, different kind of singing.

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He wanted to get some girl singers.

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And he let us go in Osangler.

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So we got a job there in the coconut grove, then the most popular.

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but in Hollywood, Beverly Hills for Pasadena for

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A nice dine-and-dance room.

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And we were there about a year.

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We're on the air.

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I think two or three times a week up and down the coast.

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A good uh exposure for the material. Yes. Well, that was a big turning point in your life, so let's break off at this point for your third disc. What's that to be? It's one of the great arrangements I've ever heard.

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and played superlatively well.

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And by

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One of the Marvelous band leaders, Benny Goodman.

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This record the

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It's a tremendous hit.

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When it came out, it had a wonderful vocal by Martha Tilton. My way of thinking is an excellent example of how to arrange a popular song and play it.

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We mean

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And the angels sing.

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Angels sing the sweetest song I ever heard.

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You speed.

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And the angel sing

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Or am I reading music into everyone?

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And the Angels Sing, vintage around 1939, if I remember, by the Benny Goodman Orchestra.

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We forget nowadays just how big radio was.

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Back in the

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Late twenties. Oh, it was tremendous, tremendous.

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Very quickly, it led to you topping the bill at big theaters like the Paramount New York. How many consecutive weeks did you do there? I think it was 28. Yeah.

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Well, from the Paramount and such like places you moved into the movies, and it was only about two years before you were one of the top ten box office names in the United States. All your early films were were light comedies with songs.

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That's right. I played the same guy in every picture. You know, uh, trying to win a girl and the mother disapproved'cause I was a crooner and had no apparent source of livelihood. What you might call almost a vagrant in her mind and I had to prove my worthiness.

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And of course there was a lot of uh struggle in between the ultimate end where she finally agreed that I was just a hell of a guy. There was a change of pace with Mississippi, that was it. A little bit, yeah, that was a period.

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A little bit, yeah, that was uh

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Cost John, W. C. Fields and John Bennett, and then later the The Road Two series with Bob Hope and Dorothy Lemour. How many were there? Seven, seven?

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Well then from your comedies you've graduated.

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If that's the word to dramatic pictures, Little Boy Lost, the Country Girl Stagecoach. Those were pretty challenging roles you took there.

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Yes, I um

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I made another dramatic picture called Man on Fire, which really was the toughest acting job of all.

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I made it up.

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But it didn't do too well. Let's have record number four now. What next? Oh, well, record number four is a very natural selection. Uh not only because it's by the great uh Glenn Miller band,

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And because it's a great song, but

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It always reminds me of.

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A beautiful ballroom.

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Full of

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Nicely dressed young people, dancing too.

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Some marvelous music. And the opening bar is a Moonlight Serenade. Right away, I'm I'm.

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in that environment and I love it.

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Uh

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The Glen Miller signature tuned Moonlight Serenade.

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Our statistics being the these of course can only be approximate. It said that you've recorded 4,000 songs. Does it seem as many as that?

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No, it doesn't really. I think that sets a little high.

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But I couldn't quarrel with it if that's the figure they've come up with and sold over 400 million

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Oh, that's high, too. I'm sure that's high. You'll be over here to record some more songs.

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Well, I've been over here twice, uh, Roy. I came over in February. Have you brought your family over with you? Yes, the whole family. I brought the two boys uh July 2nd. We landed at Pressweek and we played all the Scotch links.

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How is the golf?

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My gone? Yes. I would say I'm about a seven handicap. Mm-hmm.

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Uh

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Bing, you've always had this superbly relaxed manner. How much of that has been opposed? Are you ever a nervous man?

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No, not really a number.

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No.

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Are you superstitious?

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No, well, a couple of little things a bit

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I just uh

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I wouldn't walk under

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Uh ladder.

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But I guess that's not superstition, that's just being careful.

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I never leave a hat on a bed.

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That's a new one. I never heard of that. That's an old show business.

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That's a new one.

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That is called me on the side.

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Never put a never leave a hat on a bed. I don't know why. I can't think of anything else.

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If I spell salto a little over my left, show you.

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Well, let's get back to records being what's number five.

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Oh, another record to take to the Adaf. Where's this island going to be? Where would you like it to be? Oh, I think the South Pacific, where you can swim, you know. Right.

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South Pacific

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bathe, have a good beach.

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Maybe fashion a hook and catch a fish now and then.

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Uh a little strong. Mm-hmm. The Ormondi always has a marvelous or

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Let's listen to that.

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Lieberstrom, the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormondy. Well, we've been talking rather a lot. Let's go straight on to record number six. I got a good one for number six.

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Famous record by a famous clarinetist.

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Good friend of mine.

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He made wonderful success out of the music business because

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He's a super musician.

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And this is his record of the

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Begin the begin, Arisha.

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Artish Shores begin the begin. You murmured something about fishing just now. You have your own fishing boat. You're fond of fishing. I oh yes, I fish a lot. Uh lately, though, I've gone away from the deep sea. I did all the deep sea fishing there is to do around California, Mexico, and Hawaii.

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Now I just fish when I'm in Mexico for enough for the table, the bass and the

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What we call the mahi-mahi and the the edible fish. Yeah. My big fishing kick now is dry fly for trout or wet fly for Atlantic salmon. How would you make out on this island with improvised fishing tackle?

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I think I'd have to contrive some sort of a net, and that's not too bad with reeds or grass. You can

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Catch some fish, yeah. Should be plenty of shellfish, too. Are you a good cook?

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I can click fairly well. Could you build a house?

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No way. No way. I couldn't fix a safety pen.

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Right.

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Could you make a craft?

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Doubted. Maybe a raft.

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But it wouldn't be a

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Wouldn't take any rough water. Wouldn't be able to go very far in it. But you have no considered plans for escape as of this time. Well, I I don't I

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If there's any way I try and get off, there's too many things I'd like to get back to.

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But failing, if there wasn't any way to get off, I think I'd just play my records and

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And ruminate. Right, what's the seventh record? Seventh record is another example of a marvelous arrangement for a dance band. It's Tommy Dorsey's great disc of The Song of India.

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Tommy Dorsey's Song of India, which brings us to your large disc. What's there? Well, for a closer, I thought uh Roy and I ought to choose something peaceful and

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Relaxing.

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It's um intermit, so from

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Cavalieria Rusticana.

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The reason I chose this, it's a beautiful, beautiful piece of music.

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And I know if I'm going to be alone in this island.

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For uh

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In a definite period of time I'm going to want to pray once in a while.

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And to close with this music might impel me to bend a pious knee, and that's why I've chosen it for the closer.

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The Indomets are from Cavallodera Rosticana, Herbert von Cadillan conducting the orchestra of Lauscala Milan.

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Being if you could take just one of the eight discs you've played us, which would it be?

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Oh my heavens, bro. That's a rough, rough assignment. I probably would take uh

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South Rampart Street Parade. It's so uplifting, so spirited. Yes. Brother Bob's South Rampart Street Parade. And one luxury to take to the item.

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Nothing useful.

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I uh guitar. Can I have some strings? Of course, an inexhaustible supply. Oh, you're not. How many?

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Or

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I think it's

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How many?

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We've got caught with that before. People go and make boats out of inexhaustible supply of the margin. Well, I g I wouldn't need, you know, a tremendous supply because in the warm weather

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Well I can

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I think the strings last a lot longer than they do in cold weather. They're at least

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The only

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Less likely to break. Do you play the guitar? Enough. Enough. I imagine out there alone.

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I'd get to be very good at it, but nobody would hear me. What a pity. When you come back, a new career. Ah, if I ever get off. Yeah. And one book apart from the Bible, Shakespeare, and big encyclopedias. Well, tell me on my first time, before I make a choice, am I going to have any um

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Writing material

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Pencil and paper though, that's all. Pencil and paper.

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But I still like to take this book I have in mind.

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I can help me write.

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Get a sharp stick and write on

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Palm leaves or do something. I'd like to take Roget's Thesaurus out there and see.

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Yes.

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Rogius the Source. I think with that I could maybe do some useful writing. Good.

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Fine, and thank you, Bing Crosby, for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Thank you, Roe. I enjoyed it. Goodbye, everyone. Bye-bye.