Interview with Bob Crosby Mail about actor Ken Curtis of Gunsmoke fame Review of new a'o biography of Kay Kyser BIG BAND JIMP N EWSLETTER V O L U M E 126 BIG BAND JUMP NEW SLETTER JANUARY-FEBRUARY, 2010 INTERVIEW - BOB CROSBY BC: I was the seventh kid in my family. Dad was a bookkeeper and didn’t make much money so I was picking cucumbers for twenty-five cents an hour. I In our 1989 interview with Bob Haggart, the bass player, got a telegram from Anson Weeks asking me if I would composer and arranger with the Bob Crosby Band, he come and sing with the orchestra. I stayed with Anson pointed out that Bob Crosby was simply the front man off and on for a year and then left him at the Aragon and not responsible for the band’s music. That being Ballroom in Chicago to join the Dorsey Brothers. said, a great deal of the success of any organiza­ B B J : I understand Tommy tion is its public perception Dorsey was a real and Bob Crosby gave the task master. band an aura of friendli­ ness and warmth. Fact is, BC: W ell, more than Gil Rodin’s organizational that. He inhibited a skills and Bob Haggart’s lot of people. And also I felt that musical talents were the as a singer I was not qualified to powers behind the up­ take the place of Bing Crosby and front Crosby public pres­ with the Dorsey band I was sing­ ence. ing songs out of my range. Tommy wouldn’t have anything made up It turns out that the same for me and I was singing stocks or year our original interview whatever I could find and I devel­ with Bob Haggart was oped a vibrato that took me about conducted, radio pioneer 20 years to overcome. I was Fred Hall had his conver­ unhappy with the Dorsey band and sation with Bob Crosby. then organized a band, probably a Crosby was then semi- year and a half after Ben Pollack’s retired and spending a band had broken up. great deal of time raising horses on his ranch near BBJ: WhatwasGil Rodin’s Sacramento. He still used Bob Crosby part in all this? the Bob Crosby name in appearances with a band playing some of the original BC: Gil was a catalyst. The “Pops” of the band. arrangements, but for the most part without the original He was the one who kept it all together. He was players. the one who kept the small group that was with Ben Pollack which was Matty Matlock and Ray Bauduc and When it’s appropriate, we’ll drop in comments from our Eddie Miller and himself and Nappy Lamare but when Haggart interview. The essence of Fred Hall’s far- we organized the band we went up and found people like reaching Bob Crosby interview forms the basis, how­ Bob Haggart, Billy Butterfield, Bob Zurke, Irving ever. Trite as it is, the “How did you get started” Fazola..... now none of this fit into the Ben Pollack question is always the opener in these interviews. This picture in any way. We wrote most everything that we one is no exception. played and we were a community rather than a coopera­ tive band. If you listen to the Bobcat records you can VOLUME 126 BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER JANUARY-FEBRUARY, 2010 find no similarity with the Pollack band. I just stepped up by Johnny Burke who was writing for Bing Crosby at and took a stick and gave two beats and the drummer the time. We got a wire from the Crosby office that said changed the tempo correctly and that made me a the song I’M FREE was recorded by Bing and was now bandleader. titled WHAT’S NEW. I’d never heard the lyric or met Johnny Burke or anything but it went on from there and B B J : Was it collectively decided the emphasis would it’s been goin’ ever since. be on the two-beat Dixieland sound? BBJ: There’s a story about how SOUTH RAM­ BC: Well, that’s a misnomer. We did not play two- PART STREET PARADE came to be written. beat. We played more four-beat than two-beat We played a great deal of two-beat but when we did we BH : We were at the New Yorker Hotel and at one took Dixieland jazz out of the honky tonk field and built intermission Ray Bauduc said, “Hey, I’ve got it into the Big Band sound. an idea for a tune. It’s a New Orleans march.” He started singing me this thing. I wrote ledger lines on the We were as much a jazz band as we were Dixieland white table cloth and wrote down “Da da da dat” the though we did believe in traditional jazz. We wrote our first strain and part of the second strain. I took the own things: SOUTH RAMPART STREET PARADE, tablecloth home and made the arrangement from that. BIG NOISE, WHAT’S NEW?. We were a creative band (Back to the Bob Crosby comments, also from 1989.) B B J: Did the band hit its stride quickly? BC: No, we started out doing one-nighters and our first steady engagement was at Tybee Beach, Georgia just outside of Savannah. We had one week and a second week option and we didn’t have enough money to make the next jump unless we got that second week picked up. The Friday night at the end of the first week the owner of the ballroom, a big, tall Southern bootlegger, came up and said, “Who’s the leader of the band?” I said, “I am.” He said, “Well, lead it on out of here, you’re done tomorrow night.” It was tough. We probably made our reputation when Crosby watches Haggartplay we finally decided to go strictly with what we liked to play. We were booked into the Adolpus Hotel in Dallas (The following excerpts are from our Bob Haggart and the manager came to us before we played a note interview published in 1989.) and said, “Fellas, we’ve been able to do no business here on the roof of the Adolfus and the Baker Hotel across BH: W HAT’S NEW was a song I’d written in the street gets all the business. I’m very sorry to tell you, Chicago when we were at the Blackhawk The but on your opening night I have to give you two weeks title I put on it was I’M FREE It came out in an album notice.” So we were fired before we played a note. featuring all the guys in the band, Fazola, the clarinet player and Eddie Miller and Bob Zurke....I’M FREE Well, on the way in to the first set we got together and came out of this Bob Crosby showcase. It was the first we said, “Look, we’re nuts trying to play this dinner thing Billy Butterfield had been featured on and it caused music that compromises what we really believe in, quite a sensation, the way Billy played that tune. On the which is jazz.” We opened the dinner session with strength of that a lyric was written in California COME BACK, SWEET PAPA and we played straight 2 VOLUME 126 BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER JANUARY-FEBRUARY, 2010 on through MARCH OF THE BOBCATS and a few interview from the excellent book “Dialogues other things. Within about three days you couldn’t get In Swing” by Fred Hall, available on line at: into the room. We stayed there for, I believe, eight www.swing-thing.com or by phone at 1-800- months. The owner was impressed and he gave us the 693-9030. We encourage you to read the Lexington Hotel and the New Yorker Hotel up in New entire interview and to make this outstanding York and the band was on its way. book a part of your library along with its companion book ‘‘More Dialogues In Swing. BB J : Any favorites other than those already men­ tioned? LETTERS TO EDITOR B C : I think I liked everything we did outside of the Letters to BIG BAND JUMP or the BBJ pop tunes we were forced into doing, but I like NEWSLETTER may be sent to the address below mostly the things we created ourselves. or e-mailed to [email protected]. When you e-mail, please give your name and address. BB J : How about those in which you sang? All letters are answered, but the volume sometimes delays a timely response BC: I never tried to be a singer after I started to lead the band. When I sang it was under pressure BBJ NEWSLETTER and because it was a ballad or something that somebody Box 52252 had to sing. I knew I was gonna’ be called Bing Atlanta, GA 30355 Crosby’s brother the rest of my life, but I figured I had The published letters have been edited for space a better band than Bing had and he was a better singer, considerations, but the meaning has been pre­ so I let it go at that. I had no ambitions to sing. served. BBJ: Was there estrangement between you and Bing somewhere along the line? BC: No, no. It was a great publicity stunt once in awhile for someone to write that he and 1 didn’t get along. The reason people probably thought Bing and I didn’t get along was that we were never together.