Bing Crosby (41 page)

Those two weeks at Sue’s were all the time Bing and Dixie had to cement their marriage. On October 14 Dixie, on loan to Paramount
from Fox, was sent to New York (Astoria Studios) for a Clara Bow picture,
No Limit,
intended as the “It” girl’s comeback. Bing resented putting her on the train but was in no position to suggest she stop working.
By the time she returned, more than two months later, things appeared to be turning his way. In preparation for Dixie’s homecoming
in late December, he planned a reception at the train station and asked Louis Armstrong to preside: “Oh — Daddy Bing — Harry
Barris and Al Rinker — they gave me all sorts of inducements, etc. to just go down to the station and sorta toot a few hot
ones as she hit the ground from the train,” Louis recalled.
⁴⁹
But Armstrong had romantic plans of his own that night. As the Rhythm Boys serenaded Dixie, Bing had more to commemorate
than her arrival. In her absence, his confidence as a singer had turned a corner.

* * *

Bing made only eleven records with Arnheim, between October 1930 and May 1931, and they pack a wallop. They mark the end of
Bing’s career as a dance-band vocalist and a redefinition of his style, from Jazz Age emoter to poised soloist. Moreover,
they served as calling cards, bringing him to the attention of three men — Mack Sennett, Jack Kapp, and William Paley — who
helped ignite the Bing Crosby Era, a quarter century stretch during which no other performer rivaled his dominance in popular
entertainment.

Significantly, only one of the Arnheim sides features the Rhythm Boys, yet the three best-remembered Bing vehicles are the
work of Barris. Small wonder that Rinker was feeling “more dissatisfied” with his role in the Rhythm Boys.
⁵⁰
The trio’s last appearance on records was a capable version of “Them There Eyes,” a song memorably claimed by Billie Holiday
in 1939. The harmonizing is sure, but compared with Bing’s solo discs, the net effect is pallid; the sound of the trio could
no longer compare with the sound of Bing alone. A scat episode dominated by the zealous Harry and a breezily swinging final
chorus feel frozen and of a fading era. Still, the record was a hit, a last hurrah boosted by their frequent radio renditions.
It was quickly swamped by the revelation of Bing’s new ballad style.

If his microphone experience at the Grove cured him of the need to belt out a song, his jazz experience indemnified him from
the temptations of anemic crooning. Bing soared beyond the restraints of the Arnheim band, which though adept at a jumpy rhythm
was too hidebound to really swing. He pitched his vocals as much from the throat as from the diaphragm in an attempt to minutely
control shading and breathing. This was a calmer, steadier Bing, even on inferior songs. He subtly winks at the lyric of “Fool
Me Some More” and provides the record’s only rhythmic jolt by syncopating the first beat of his last eight bars. He imbues
Berlin’s negligible “The Little Things in Life” (cut from
Reaching for the Moon)
with the authority of a man willing to sell a song on its own terms.

On good songs his heightened authority is unmistakable. A major tune that year and a Grove favorite was James P. Johnson’s
“If I Could Be with You (One Hour Tonight),” which became a jazz classic with the release of three highly inventive hit records
by Louis Armstrong, McKinney’s Cotton Pickers (with Benny Carter), and the Mound City Blue Blowers (with Coleman Hawkins and
Pee Wee Russell).
The melody inspired jazz musicians, and Bing’s rendition inspired Barris to concoct a secondary theme, which Jimmy Grier arranged
as accompaniment to Bing’s vocal. Bing liked the second strain so well that, at his suggestion, Harry asked Gordon Clifford
to write a lyric, transforming a countermelody into a song, “It Must Be True.” Arranged by Grier over a lazy two-beat with
a chorus of Bing’s most impetuous whistling to date, the recorded version was released as the flip side of “Them There Eyes”
and exceeded it in popularity. The second Crosby-Barris-Grier record, early in the New Year of 1931, proved to be a milestone.

“I Surrender, Dear” renovated Bing’s professional stature on several counts. Barris configured the melody after hearing Bing
sing a variation on “Lover, Come Back to Me,” and Gordon Clifford wrote the lyric. From the time Bing introduced it, the song
was hugely popular at the Grove and on radio; he was often asked to sing it several times in an evening. The recording is
startling, calling attention to itself with an unconventional arrangement that defied dancers with its frequent change-ups
in tempo and manner. Grier had written a concert-style orchestration of a popular song, and though the effect superficially
resembled Whiteman’s more inflated numbers, the result was cogently novel. It begins with an introduction by trombones and
strings, essays the verse with sixteen bars of fox-trotting strings followed by jazz trumpet and solo clarinet, and then sets
the stage for Bing’s entrance with a splendid two-bar ensemble transition. Even his chorus, elaborately supported by the band,
has a change-up: he sings the bridge over modified stop-time rhythm. The ensuing instrumental chorus starts with trombone
and strings intimating an Eastern strain, and leads to muted trumpets and responsive violins, a stop-time clarinet, a bridge
that suggests a Polish wedding dance, and a finish that combines rigidly marching trombones and a crescendo from which Bing’s
voice glides for a brief reprise.

With Bing wrapping the word
dear
around a shapely mordent, sculpting dynamics, and impeccably articulating every word and pitch in a climbing melody that
parallels the rising ardor in his voice (or vice versa), the performance is if not his finest to date, then certainly his
most paradigmatic. Bing’s huskiness is wonderfully captured by the Victor technicians (a perquisite of recording with Arnheim),
and his projection is at once forceful and restrained. The
success of the record amplified his national reputation and all but buried the Rhythm Boys; for as popular as they were, radio
audiences wanted to hear that astonishing singer with the throb in his voice, not a trio of hepcats. Perhaps the prime indication
of Bing’s elevated stature was Louis Armstrong’s cover of “I Surrender, Dear,” which Rudy Vallee — in recounting Armstrong’s
influence on Bing, Russ Columbo, Mildred Bailey, and others — proclaimed a masterpiece.
⁵¹
Before the year was out, Louis covered two more Crosby signature tunes, “Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams” and “Star Dust,” and
often paid homage (“I’m Confessin’ “) to his friend with crooning asides and telling mordents.

Louis was not alone. Bing was now imitable, not only in the positive sense but also as an object of parody. When Bing leaned
too heavily on mannerisms, he courted the kind of mockery that, on the heels of his movie breakthrough, unleashed a generation
of
bu-bu-bu-boo
impressionists. Only Dixie had the temerity to emphasize the danger, and did so with devastating precision late in 1931,
in Rudy Wiedoeft’s Vitaphone short
Darn Tootiri’,
singing Bing’s hit of the moment, “I Apologize.” She reveals no overt indication of parody, but her droll mordent-heavy performance
is spot-on. Bing got the message, after a period of testing, indulging, and rejecting diverse affectations. At his next Arnheim
session, Bing turned in a rigorous performance of “Thanks to You,” investing trite material with a glowing conviction as fresh
and innovative as anything heard in American song. That same day he recorded the romping “One More Time” and the finest of
Barris’s songs (lyric by Ted Koehler and Billy Moll), “Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams,” in which Bing combines whistling and
singspiel and finesses a bel canto second chorus variation. He continued to explore emotional range, from the vibrant “I Found
a Million Dollar Baby (in a Five and Ten Cent Store),” with its jaunty release and soaring finish, to the amorous “At Your
Command,” backed only by its composer, Harry Barris, and complete with an interlude of fauxRachmaninoff pounding.

With records like “Thanks to You,” Bing heralded the end of songpluggers and the tyranny of sheet music — although he appeared
on more sheet-music covers than anyone else. Neutral or detached renditions designed to boost the song gave way to individualized
interpretations. In blending and mainstreaming all he had learned from
Jolson, Armstrong, Waters, and others, Bing personalized and deepened pop. Jazz adapts material with a brashness expounded
in Trummy Young’s song “Tain’t What You Do (It’s the Way That You Do It).” Bing showed that a popular singer could be just
as much in command. Yet he created an illusion of commonality. Bing, like Jolson, was unique, but unlike Jolson, he was at
the same time Everyman. Jolson threw himself at his listeners; Crosby made his listeners come to him. Jolson inspired them
to cheer him; Crosby seduced them into contemplation. Most radio fans did not know what he looked like, yet they responded
to him with the sighs and blushes usually reserved for movie idols.

Dixie was thrilled at Bing’s progress but distraught at the state of their marriage. In the two months since she returned
from New York, Dixie exhausted herself trying to keep up with his nightlife while doing justice to her own career. On March
4, two days after the “Thanks to You” session, she announced her intention to file for divorce. “We have been married only
about six months,” she told an Associated Press reporter, “but we have already found out that we are not suited to each other.
Our separation is an amicable one, and the only reason for it is that we just can’t get along.”
⁵²
Amicable it was, for the simple reason that she neglected to inform Bing, who learned she was charging mental cruelty when
Everett phoned to read him the newspaper account. Dixie vanished and Bing didn’t know her whereabouts for ten days, until
a friend persuaded her to call him from her hideout in Agua Caliente.

Bing had been drinking and carousing again, but that was not the primary issue for Dixie. The intolerable thing was that she
never saw him. At first she traipsed about with him every night, staying late at the Grove and then moving on to the Cotton
Club and other places, overimbibing and not much enjoying it. Dixie was nineteen and wanted her husband, not the party swirling
around him. Sue Carol and others at Fox noticed how exhausted she looked. Dixie, realizing she could not live both of their
lives, made an agreement with Bing: he would not go to her job, and she would not go to his. They would meet on weekends.
But Bing often preferred to spend that time playing golf or baseball. There were nights he stayed out till the small hours
while she waited up, a nervous wreck, taking one drink and
then another in the vain hope of getting to sleep. Another source of contention was his gambling, an unlikely habit for a
man later known for his financial prudence, but one that in those years consumed his income.

Putting aside his fear of flying, Bing chartered a single-engine plane and headed for the Mexican playground where they had
spent weekends at the track and casino.
⁵³
Dixie was amazed that he was willing to board such a contraption and was moved by his entreaties. But she was now in the
catbird seat and made a fateful bargain, demanding that he quit drinking and take control of his life. The Agua Caliente pact
became part of Crosby family lore. According to Bob Crosby, Dixie made Bing’s career possible when she weaned him off alcohol.
Yet the weaning was a two-year process, and at the end of that time Dixie would be fighting her own battle with booze. Bob
conceded the devastating impact her drinking had on her health and her relationship with Bing, but steadfastly maintained,
“It was to me one of the finest marriages that I have ever seen…. You couldn’t escape feeling the love between the two of
them.”
⁵⁴

It is difficult to contemplate their disenchanted marriage, which caused much misery even as it was universally acclaimed
as idyllic, without disquiet. Yet it is no less difficult to imagine their not marrying, considering how forceful Dixie was
in turning Bing around and how large a role their mythic romance played in the public imagination. As Bing’s star rose and
Dixie’s dimmed, rumors spread of her sacrifice. By the 1940s the hearsay gained traction when reports of their troubled marriage
made the gossip columns and Walter Wanger produced a picture allegedly based on Dixie’s plight
(Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman,
1947). Bing considered bringing suit, but his attorney correctly pointed out that the public would never connect the film
to him and Dixie unless he publicized his outrage. For even then, the Crosbys were popularly known as a model couple.

The public was not entirely deceived. Dixie was crazy about Bing, whom she privately called Angel. Her dramatic getaway had
apparently been an attempt to save the marriage; she never filed suit and the place she ran to — a resort Bing loved, where
they had shared happy times — suggested her hope for a honeymoon furlough. Dixie later said she asked Bing if he wanted her
back because he could not countenance divorce. He assured her that as they were married only
six months, it would not have been “much of a megillah to get it annulled.”
⁵⁵
Agua Caliente was their chance for a clean break, and they didn’t take it. The papers announced their reconciliation on March
15.

Bing promised to reform and, despite several slips during the next couple of years, so successfully took control of his drinking
problem that it all but disappeared. Until this point, his story threatened to turn into a prototype for the plight of music’s
slow suicides: from Bix Beiderbecke and Charlie Parker to Hank Williams and Elvis Presley. But Bing’s tale took a radical
turn. He would achieve a complete personal reversal, exercising jurisdiction over every minute of his day. If Prohibition
found him exploring the lower depths, as he had as a child, working before dawn at the Everyman’s Club, the Depression would
help him to reassert the rectitude he had exhibited on those same mornings at mass. Instead of joining the ranks of defiant
young artists who crash prosperity’s gate only to be undone by its rewards, he would learn to savor — with disarming modesty
— the public’s adoration and the privileges of power. As the Depression deepened, he would become a standard-bearer for community
and survival.