crooner: Information from Answers.com

Left To Right, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and Dean Martin

Crooner is an epithet given to a male singer of a certain style of popular songs, dubbed pop standards. A crooner is a singer of popular ballads and thus a "balladeer". The singer is normally backed by a full orchestra or big band. Generally, crooners sang and popularized the songs from the Great American Songbook. Crooner was originally bestowed as a negative term, and many people given the term, such as Russ Colombo, did not consider themselves to be crooners. In an interview, Frank Sinatra said that he did not consider himself or Bing Crosby to be crooners.

Evolution

Crooning is a style that has its roots in the Bel Canto of Italian Opera, but with the emphasis on subtle vocal nuances and phrasing found in Jazz as opposed to elaborate ornamentation or sheer acoustic volume found in opera houses. Before the advent of the microphone, popular singers, like Al Jolson, had to project to the rear seats of a theater, which made for a very loud vocal style. The microphone made possible the more personal style. Crooning is not so much a style of music as it is a technique in which to sing.

Some crooners, most notably Ed Cox, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Bing Crosby, incorporated other popular styles into their music, such as Blues, Dixieland and even native Hawaiian music. Crooning became the dominant form of popular vocal music from the late 1920s to the early 1960s, coinciding with the advent of radio broadcasting and electrical recording. For example, Bing Crosby's radio show, Kraft Music Hall (1935-1946) was heard by 50 million listeners every Thursday evening (Giddins, Gary. "A Pocketful of Dreams")

Decline

After 1954 popular music became dominated by other styles, especially rock 'n' roll, while the music of latter-day crooners such as Perry Como and Matt Monro was recategorized as "easy listening" or "adult contemporary." Crooners have remained popular among fans of traditional pop music, with contemporary performers such as Tony Bennett, Tom Jones, Michael Bublé and Engelbert Humperdinck keeping the form alive. While both male and female singers sang in this style, the term "crooner" is rarely, and improperly, used to describe a female singer.

List of famous crooners

(Grouped by the decades in which their careers began.)

1920s

Gene Austin
Smith Ballew
Al Bowlly
Russ Columbo
Bing Crosby
Cliff Edwards
Art Gillham, "The Whispering Pianist"
Rudy Vallée
"Whispering" Jack Smith

1930s

1940s

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s & 2000s

Sources

Michael Pitts and Frank Hoffman. The Rise of the Crooners (Scarecrow Press, 2002).
Giddins, Gary. "A Pocketful of Dreams" Boston: (Little, Brown and Company, 2001).
Various Artists. "Fabulous 50's Crooners Sing Their Hard To Find Hits" Ontario: (Hit Parade Records, 2006)

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crooner