| NAME | MESSAGE |
| eduardo |
posted 08/04/05 11:51 AM Central Time (US)  no email address given
I don't understand very much this issue about Bing and The Country Hall of Fame. In my opinion Bing wasn't a country singer. He was a very good pop singer that sung some goods country songs like others singers Ray Charles, Sammy Davis Jr etc. In the same way Bing wasn't a jazz singer and he isn't on Down Beat Hall of Fame too besides he sung very good jazz tunes. |
| Ronald Sarbo |
posted 08/04/05 01:27 PM Central Time (US)  contact the author directly
Eduardo: Bing was arguably the first POP singer to introduce many CandW songs to the mainstream pop audience. Bing paved the way for Ray Charles, Tony Bennett, Dean Martin, and Al Martino to perform this material. Bing also was a great influence on Gene Autry and Eddy Arnold. It has been written that Hank Williams himself was trying to write songs for Bing at the time of his death on New Year's Day 1953. As for "In the same way Bing wasn't a jazz singer" I don't know where to begin with that statement. |
| Jim Kukura |
posted 08/04/05 02:35 PM Central Time (US) contact the author directly
I believe the "What's New?" reference to Bing being in the Country Hall of Fame was tongue-in-cheek. Not that Bing couldn't put a country or western song over with the best of them, and had many such songs on the pop charts, but he only had two (I think) songs chart on the Country charts, and that obviously is not credentials for the Country Hall of Fame. |
| Steven Lewis |
posted 08/04/05 03:07 PM Central Time (US) no email address given
There was nothing 'tongue-in-cheek' about my complaint that Bing isn't is in the country music hall of fame. If Elvis is there, Bing should be there. Listen to Eddy Arnold speaking about Bing's role in mainstreaming country music in the '30s and '40s. The country charts, by the way, didn't exist until the middle of the 1940s. And who do you think sat atop the very first Billboard country chart? Bing Crosby singing "Don't Fence Me In." |
| Stan Walker |
posted 08/04/05 04:07 PM Central Time (US) contact the author directly
I was thinking about starting a thread on this topic a few weeks ago after listening again to Bing's country songs after the "Home on the Range" thread of last month. I looked at the current members of the Country Music Hall of Fame and, besides Elvis, there was also the Everly Brothers and Kris Kristofferson, singers I would never associate with country songs. Although I wouldn't say that they don't deserve to be in the Hall of Fame, surely Bing deserves to be in it just as much (and probably more) then they do. I agree with Steve. |
| Don Lamb |
posted 08/04/05 06:36 PM Central Time (US) contact the author directly
I also agree with Steven that Crosby should be in the country hall of fame. Probably most of the older country performers would agree with that as well. Eddie Arnold idolized Bing and fashioned his vocal style after him. So did Jim Reeves. When Patsy Cline made her first album for Decca Records, "I Fall To Pieces," the first song that she recorded especially for the album was "True Love," which she insisted upon doing in honor of Bing, whose lyrical vocal style she gently imitated by humming a portion of the bridge. (By the way, her recording of that song, while not quite as good as Bing and Grace Kelly's, is magnificent. If you haven't heard it, I would strongly recommend it to you.} |
| Randy |
posted 08/04/05 07:10 PM Central Time (US) no email address given
Elvis is still ranked as one of the 40 most successful Country Music chart acts ever,so he should be in the Hall Of Fame.During the early 90s,Elvis was listed in the all-time top 40 chart acts for Pop, Country, and Adult Contemporary music. No other act ranks in the top 40 in all of the four major music genres. |
| Stan Walker |
posted 08/04/05 07:36 PM Central Time (US) contact the author directly
Did those charts include acts before 1950? |
| Cheryl Davenport |
posted 08/04/05 08:43 PM Central Time (US) contact the author directly
Someone of Bing's stature should be recognized for their wide range of talents in every category of music. It's not about who is better than who. Elvis, Bing, Frank and others as successful as those....should all be recognized. Like Steven was saying..if there is one, then why not the other? (so to speak). |
| Jim Kukura |
posted 08/04/05 11:02 PM Central Time (US) contact the author directly
Everyone is entitled to thier opinion, of course, but I stick by my conviction that Bing does not belong in the Country Hall of Fame. Mind you, I am also of the conviction that Bing is the greatest singer of all time, probably the greatest entertainer. He sang jazz, ballads, country, western, novelty, ethnic, seasonal, classical, and you name it with the same singular talent. I have always been partial to Bing's Country/Western recordings, and always thought the much-maligned John Scott Trotter did a great job in giving these recordings a nice Country/Western flair with a big studio orchestra. Certainly Eddie Arnold was influenced by Bing, which is why Arnold had 33 Pop chart records. Jim Reeves had 25 Pop chart records. Patsy Cline had 19 Pop chart records, and would have had many more had she not tragically died so young. But does Bing's influence in the mainstreaming of so many primarily Country artists qualify as credentials for his consideration into the Country Hall of Fame? We've often read of Bing's influence on Rock and Roll artists, including John Lennon no less. Should we now lobby for Bing's entry into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? Elvis started with Sun records in Memphis; his roots are in Country music. The Everly Brothers first singed with Chet Atkins in Nashville; their roots are in Country music. Kris Kristofferson moved to Nashville in 1965 to pursue a Country music career. Kristofferson, through 1990, had 7 Pop chart records, the highest at the #5 position. Kristofferson had 12 Country Chart records, including two #1 hits. I want to see Bing get his due as much as anybody. But I cannot see Bing in the Country Music Hall of Fame with only two credited Country chart records. It would look like Bing was being championed for a laurel that was questionable at best, and he would hate that more than anyone. |
| Randy |
posted 08/04/05 11:13 PM Central Time (US) no email address given
Bing's importance was not large enough in Country Music to overcome his lack of Country hits. I think his importance in Pop Music should get more attention than it does and I think his stats should be included on the all-time Billboard lists. Stan,I don't know how far back they went for their rankings.They were most likely including album stats in their list,which would have helped Elvis greatly.Elvis had a stretch from 1973 through 1977,where all 17 of his Country albums went top 10,12 went top 5,8 went top 2,and 6 went number one.Elvis is one of a very few Country acts that had 30 or more top 10 singles and 30 or more top 10 albums. |
| Steven Lewis |
posted 08/05/05 12:27 AM Central Time (US) no email address given
Bing had far more country hits than Roy Acuff, Hank Williams and Jimmy Rodgers combined in the 1890-1954 period. I have 3 CDs in front of me now that include about 70 Crosby country recordings prior to 1955, most of which qualified as chart hits according to Joel Whitburn. Just check the discography at this site. If you did anything at school but go to recess and sleep during your history lessons you should be able to do the homework. There were no country charts until the mid-1940s or comprehensive pop charts before 1940. Hit recordings before that date have to be calculated on the basis of record sales, airplay and other data that are available from the pre-1940 era, as Joel Whitburn has done. |
| Jon O. |
posted 08/05/05 12:54 AM Central Time (US) contact the author directly
Looking down the list of inductees to the Country Music Hall of Fame leads me to believe that the only thing keeping Bing out was his lack of a Southern "twang", or dialect. "Pop" quiz... What do the following artists all have in common? Louis Jordan Les Paul Dinah Washington Louis Armstrong Charlie Christian Mahalia Jackson Jelly Roll Morton Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys Charles Brown Nat “King” Cole Billie Holiday Answer: they're all in the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame as "Early Influences". If Bing was the grand daddy of popular singing as we know it, then it follows that he's as legitimate an "early influence" on Rock 'n' Roll as any of these performers. |
| Jon O. |
posted 08/05/05 01:17 AM Central Time (US) contact the author directly
Getting back to Country and Western Music (as it used to be called) -- I believe I've read that Jimmy Rodgers, "The Singing Brakeman", is considered by some to be the first modern CandW performer. If I'm not mistaken, his recording career began at about the same time as Bing's. If you want to argue that Rodgers began cutting Country records before Bing, keep in mind that Rodgers recorded quite a few "popular" songs right from the beginning of his brief career as well, and was even backed by Louis Armstrong (hardly considered a CandW performer) on one of his records. I'm not even sure it was called "Country and Western" back then...I think it was referred to as "Hillbilly" music. Anyway Bing, who was recording what we would now call "Country" music at least as early as 1933, and who influenced virtually every singer alive at the time (including Rodgers, Gene Autry, et al.) therefore probably does deserve recognition in the CMHOF. By the way, Jimmie Rodgers is in the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame as an “Early Influence” too. |
| Mike O |
posted 08/05/05 08:57 AM Central Time (US) contact the author directly
It is sort of ironic that Jimmie Rodgers became the Father of Country Music. He most certainly is, because of his enormous influence on the entire field of Country music. But the irony is that I don't think he considered himself a "hillbilly" singer at all. He aspired to the same universal appeal as a singer that Bing eventually achieved. |
| Ronald Sarbo |
posted 08/05/05 09:15 AM Central Time (US) contact the author directly
Bing belongs in the C/W Hall of Fame because very few people in the rest of the country outside of the South and especially in the great urban centers of NY, Chicago, LA etc would have heard of songs like "Pistol Packin' Mama", "Walkin'The Floor Over You", "It Makes No Difference Now", "I'm Thinking Tonight Of My Blue Eyes", "New San Antonio Rose" and countless others if Bing had not recorded them. Fred Rose, who wrote "Deed I Do" among other standards, got the idea to steer the songs of Hank Williams and other country artists to the pop market because of Bing's success. This also paved the way for the emergence of Rock and Roll and the rise of Elvis Presley. As Will F. in his article on Presley states Frankie Laine and Johnnie Ray had helped pave the way for Elvis but Laine was also heavily influenced by Bing as well as Louis Armstrong. Johnnie Ray made his first album with Buddy Cole and his later LP "On The Trail" is heavily influenced by Bing's Western recordings. |