On 29 Dec 2004 04:46:08 -0800, "db" wrote:

Yeah all that stuff about Crosby being a sadistic father kind of sealed
my opinion of him. snip

Revisionists (including his own family!) have tried to bury this
again, but the infamy continues.

I Never liked his voice, even as a child. Face it, he was a
narcassistic asshole with a mediocre voice, and an incredible amount
of luck. snip

I don't know...Crosby could be soothing at times, but one-dimensional.
It's been said more than once that the reasons that Bing Crosby and
Kate Smith made it at all was the fact that the timbres and strengths
of their voices could "punch through" on those horrid Western Electric
carbon mikes of the '30s, and thus would sound better on radio. Once
stardom on radio was achieved, record sales naturally followed, as did
major star status.

Kate Smith never had ANY education on ANYTHING musical in her life,
and couldn't read music. Everything she did was purely
instinctive...a true natural talent, in that she simply had tons of
energy behind her voice. As recording improved over the years, she
became more of an artifact of earlier days, but until the end, NO one
could belt out a song from the stage without reinforcement like Kate
Smith could...she was THAT LOUD!

dB