Working closely with
the International Crosby Circle
and particularly with its American representative
F.B. (Wig) Wiggins
,
MCA Records
has issued some excellent
Bing Crosby
compilations:
Their Complete Recordings Together
(
Crosby
and
the Andrews Sisters
),
Bing's Gold Records
, and
The Voice of Christmas
.
Academy Award Winners & Nominees: 1934-1960
can be added to this list, compiled and annotated by
Wiggins
, who co-produced with
MCA
's
Andy McKaie
. The idea of compiling an album of
's performances of Oscar-nominated songs is a good one, since he also doubled as a movie star and, as
points out, introduced more nominees and winners than any other singer. In all, 14 of the songs he sang in his movies earned nominations, and four --
"Sweet Leilani,"
"White Christmas,"
"Swinging on a Star,"
"In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening"
-- won statuettes. The only one missing is
"True Love,"
's duet with
Grace Kelly
from
High Society
and his last major hit, which was released by
Capitol Records
. Filling out the album are other nominees and winners that
covered but did not sing in the films with which they were associated, and these are some of the most interesting performances on the disc. Of course, the bulk of the album consists of standards that
owned; his intelligent, playful, and reassuring screen persona was underlined by songs custom-tailored for him. Some of the best of them are found here on a collection that also traces the history of Hollywood from just after the dawn of the sound era to the breakup of the studio system, a period when movies were family entertainment and
was the country's biggest musical star. ~ William Ruhlmann