Jazz, blues and nostalgia. ‘By whispering I will seduce you.’ About the rise of so-called crooners.
When in 1925 the Victor Talking Machine Company introduced the electric microphone, it sparked a revolution in popular music. From that moment on vocalists no langer had to shout in a horn at the top of their voice in order to be heard above the musicians but could sing softer and in a more intimate way. By a creative use of microphone they were much better able to interpret a song than before. It led to a relaxed and often a sensual manner of singing. A love song could be rendered with a hitherto unprecedented intimacy. It wasn’t for nothing that conservative movements called crooning ‘a diabolical evil’ and condemned singers like Rudy Vallée who ‘whine a degenerate song, which is unworthy of any American man’. Including Bing Crosby, Russ Columbo, Jack Teagarden, Dick Powell, Connee Boswell, Al Bowlly, ‘whispering’ Jack Smith and others.
