Welder World Blog

Posts Tagged ‘California’

When someone thinks about building bridges, roads or even buildings, the first thing that comes to mind is generally not welding. It is really a shame that this critical part to our construction industry is not recognized more often. Welding is the basis for all infrastructure projects. Without the welder, there would not be roads, bridges or high rise buildings. Pipelines, ships and even railroad cars all need to be welded together before being used. Society would stand still without this skill.

The Importance of Welding and Welding Schools

The building of the infrastructure in California is an ongoing project. Roads need to be built or improved, bridges need to be fixed and updated. Without properly trained welders to accomplish these tasks these projects could not be done safely. It is also important to have a healthy supply of California welding schools available to continue teaching welding techniques to new welders as well as experienced welders.

Welders need to know and understand about the different types of metals used to build the framework for these projects. The skeletal frames of roads and bridges need to be pieced together correctly to ensure strength and durability.

Without welding many industries could not exist. For example, the pipelines that run through California. The pipelines provide many jobs for the people of the state as well as the much needed resources to run the state. These pipelines are all welded together. They are done so in a fashion that prevents leakage and provides strength to withstand inclement weather and earthquakes.

Welding Training and Job Outlook

Welding takes special skills and California welding training. It is a great profession to choose because there is always a need. Any type of construction that is done requires the skills of a welder. Even during the hardest economic times, welders generally remain employed.

Trained welders can even expand their skills by becoming welding inspectors or welding engineers. This is a field with innumerable opportunities because progress must continue. As the population grows, as the needs of that population change and as things need to be replaced or repaired, there will always be a need for a skilled welder.

It is easy to overlook the importance that welding plays in industry. We do not often think of the people that build the framework for all the things we use. Welders have been a critical part of building California since its inception, and for that matter, the entire country.

 A very large percentage of the Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors in our country are also Recovering Addicts. This especially pertains to those certified by agencies created specifically to improve the qualifications of those working in a previously hugely unregulated field. This certification became necessary, as so many Addicts inspired by the 12 Step Concept, want to “give back” what they have acquired that changed their lives for the better, and in many cases “saved their life”! 

 

I can only speak for myself, but approaching 10 years as a counselor, I believe myself to to represent the profile of very many counselors. I definitely have had issues that relate back to childhood personality problems like, shyness, insecurity, and fear. As a child I was very small. I began school, 1st grade, at only 5 years old, in rural Missouri.

 

My family relocated from there to California whan I was eight. When I graduated from 8th grade I was 4’8″ tall and weighed a mere 78 pounds. I had already spent 2 years in over-achievement, with a great degree of success. In 8th grade I was a starting line member in every sport. A benefit that came with that success, at that time, was that girls approached me, in spite of the fact that I was still so lacking in self-confidence that I could not approach them. So, at 12 years old, in 8th grade I won a popularity test at the annual Carnival and was crowned King of the Carnival. This was a very small rural school, though. My problems really surfaced in the next, or 1st year of High School. I was cut from every sport I entered in my Freshman year. This was a major blow to my somewhat bloated ego. I did still maintain a dominant role in my neighborhood, though. But school was important… very important to me as it is to all children. Thus I began my first associations with an alternative demographic and began drinking and smoking pot as regularly as an average 12 or 13 year old could… mostly Saturday nights. I also started hanging out with people 3 or 4 years old than I was. This period, I feel, set the trend for my life assuming the outcast or outlaw persona! Between my freshman and sophomore years I grew from 5’1″ to 5’8″ and shot up to 145 pounds, which left me sort of with 2 left feet and hands. It was a disappointing time and I began to drink and smoke pot more, usually staying under-the-influence all weekend.

 

This is in the 1960′s and a lot of social anxiety was going on with the civil rights movement many other societal tensions. The “underground” was forming and I was right there in the middle of it as much as someone my age could be. Remember, I had a tendency to associate with people older than me. My junior year in high school started with a move to a high school that just opened that year. I tried to make it a fresh start. I went to class everyday, which I had not been doing recently. My grades improved and at 5’9″ and 160 pounds I had regained my agility and made the Varsity squad of the wrestling team. Somehow I found the strength to refrain from drinking and smoking pot and cigarettes. I now had two lives that I kept unbelievably well separated from one and other (honing my skills of deceit)! I had my “Jock” friends, and I had my “Hippie” friends. After wrestling season ended, the hippies gradually became my “comfort zone”. As was the course all through high school, I was not very popular with the girls, especially those expected to be in the company of an athlete. This was a real problem that I suppressed and eventually came to accept, on the surface, as not very important, though my libido told me differently. My senior year I went out for wrestling and inflated the seriousness of a minor injury so I could quit. Luckily, my academic performance had so improved that I only had to attend classes for half of the day. Sadly, it gave me more time to pursue my alternative lifestyle choice! I was using drugs more frequently than ever and began involvement in politics, even attending demonstrations against the war in Vietnam, that were in their fledgling state, but would soon dominate the National stage. I graduated from High School at 17 without a clue regarding my future.

 

In a matter of months the “Draft” would resolve that issue. I knew that my number would come up soon because I would be 18 soon, and everyone in my uncommitted status of life got drafted shortly after turning 18. So, shortly before my eighteenth birthday I went to the Navy recruiter, to avoid the Army Infantry. This was also truly an attempt to change my future as I was certainly headed for drug addiction, already a serious drug abuser, and full-well knew it! Wrong!!! Wrong decision!!! Join the Navy… see the World! Guess what? That big old World out there had better, easier to get, drugs than I ever could have imagined.

 

 San Diego may very well have been the drug capital of California at that time, rivaled only by maybe, San Francisco. Of course I couldn’t use in Boot Camp; the first four months in the service. But, I stayed in San Diego, in schools, training in electricity and electronics and radio communications. The training schedule was arduous, but I found my first true love as a result… Amphetamines!!! This is an extremely addictive drug and you build tolerance to it rapidly. Starting with about 10 “Bennies” a week, I eventually found myself taking up to 100 per day. I had made a connection across the border in Tijuana and became a drug dealer to help support my enormous habit. In this precarious position, I was headed for an assignment in “Top Secret” classified communications at the Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet Headquarters at Pearl Harbor. Again, I would make an attempt to arrest my drug abuse problem, and it wasn’t too difficult for a while.

 

At the Communications Center, we worked 12 hours on 12 hours off, seven days a week, for the first ten months I was there. Still, I managed to make some minor drug connections at Pearl Harbor. After that first 10 months we were allocated almost a 50% increase in personnel and I found myself with a lot of free time and also moved off base. It was easy to get Navy pay for off base housing because of their fear of “shop talk” in our off hours at Pearl Harbor. Well, folks, Pearl Harbor, as you know, is in Hawaii. I found myself living only blocks from Waikiki Beach. Now, I was able to return to a very familiar scenario; living a dual life, with my Navy friends and my Civilian friends becoming two separate lives. Somehow, I managed my Navy life. There was no drug testing back then, fortunately for me. Or, maybe unfortunately for me, I don’t know for sure. I made civilian connections and begun selling drugs to a dealer at Pearl Harbor that I had used for my own needs, previously. I also went to a lot of rock and roll music concerts, taking LSD, experimenting with Cocaine, and even getting my first taste of Heroin. I started helping the “Draft” resistance keep people out of the service and even worked with a Church that was a sanctuary for “deserters”. This led to a relationship with some local American Civil Liberties Union people, who offered to help me desert to Canada, but I couldn’t go that route. My love for my parents definitely had something to do with that decision, but truthfully, I was just plain old scared to make a move that big and bold and serious. I still had enough sense to see losing a “Dishonorable Discharge” as too high a price to pay for any reason. My family has a long history of service to this country going all the way back to Charles Carroll of Carrollton signing the Declaration of Independence. Anyway, by the Grace of God, I did get an Honorable Discharge, and make it through the whole ordeal of the United States Military. I may not have indicated it, but I was raised on John Wayne and have always had a true love for and pride in my Country. If not, I never would have seen enlisting as a solution to my drug problem. It’s true that the ‘60′s made me question a lot, but I’m tried and true, red, white and blue, at heart.

 

The biggest blow to my patriotism came as a result of working in Top Secret communications, though. I am a patriot and will not mention any details of my work, to this day. It must suffice to say that I could confirm that the President of the United States was telling the American public lies, period… outright lies!!! This is what led me to the draft resistance, and became a perfect excuse to become a full-blown Drug Addict. I did some other duty in the Navy but it’s mostly irrelevant right now. Let’s just say that I came home to California, disenfranchised, angry, and a regular dumping ground for drugs. I came home using anything and everything in almost every combination conceivable. On top of that, I had lost all faith, and for many years claimed atheism as my chosen belief.

 

I drew unemployment compensation the first year I was out, growing my hair and trying to be as much of a “hippie” as I possibly could. I did anything that would distance me far from the military! I have to admit though that right at first I screwed up big time and found myself in jail 28 days after leaving the military. I had a succession of drug arrests until my unemployment checks ended and had to go to work. I got my bearings and after living a dual life in the Military, doing it in civilian life became a piece of cake. From 1974 to 1991 I was what some call a “functioning addict”! I had good jobs and learned the trade of pipe welding and became a Union member with my own portable welding truck. Drug testing still wasn’t very prominent. I made well over a million dollars over that period but by the time of my next drug arrest in 1991, I owned no property, lost my welding truck, had two divorces, and had no money in the bank. I had specific addictions to alcohol, cocaine and methamphetamines. The “Meth” was the closer. From 1991 to 1995 I spent about half of my time homeless or in jail. Between 1985 and 1995 I did a lot of things I am ashamed of to this day. Worst of all was deserting my children, choosing drugs and addicted women over them!

 

In 1995, at 45, with my last trip to jail, I fell completely apart mentally and spiritually, and no longer had the desire to live, but had come to hope that there was a God. In lieu of a 3 year prison term, and incredibly compassionate Judge looked at my Military Service, my deceiving job history, and I think my obviously apparent declining physical condition and sentenced me to just jail time, and coupled it with a sentence to a drug rehabilitation program. That Judge named “Felice” saved my life, surely under the direction of God and by recommendation from the assistant DA. I now like to say the DA, the VA, AA and NA saved me. During that last arrest, I began praying again. When I got that last sentence I had already come to believe in God. About 10 days after becoming incarcerated, on the eve of my father’s (who was in the hospital) birthday), I had a radical religious experience, and my life was changed from that moment on! You can read about that in one of my articles at EzineArticles.com…  

 

I did my jail term. Successfully completed a drug rehabilitation program and the VA Hospital in Fresno, CA. Remained clean as a member of AA and NA. Went back to a full-time job (notice that I did not go directly into training for counseling). Went back to school for office skills. Went back to school at Cal-State University Bakersfield, Drug and Alcohol program and became a Certified Counselor through the California Association of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors (CAADAC) and have worked as a Counselor since. I was working in the field before, and during my schooling, close to 10 years now. This I believe is a very common scenario of personal history for drug counselors, as I stated at the beginning of this article. My total acceptance of the help provided me in “Treatment” helped to make it successful for me. I must mention the loving caring staff at the VA program, too. I hold one person in the highest regard and that is my personal counselor, Sally Belle, who understood me so well. She gave me the initial inspiration and suggestion to become a Counselor.

www.bingcrosby.com

Harry Lillis “Bing” Crosby (May 3, 1903 October 14, 1977) was an American popular singer and actor whose career stretched over more than half a century from 1926 until his death. Crosby was the best-selling recording artist until well into the rock era, with over half a billion records in circulation.

One of the first multimedia stars, from 1934 to 1954 Bing Crosby held a nearly unrivaled command of record sales, radio ratings and motion picture grosses. Widely recognized as one of the most popular musical acts in history, Crosby is also credited as being the major inspiration for most of the male singers of the era that followed him, including Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, and Dean Martin. Yank magazine recognized Crosby as the person who had done the most for American G.I. morale during World War II and, during his peak years, around 1948, polls declared him the “most admired man alive,” ahead of Jackie Robinson and Pope Pius XII. Also during 1948, the Music Digest estimated that Crosby recordings filled more than half of the 80,000 weekly hours allocated to recorded radio music.

Crosby exerted an important influence on the development of the postwar recording industry. In 1947, he invested ,000 in the Ampex company, which developed North America’s first commercial reel-to-reel tape recorder, and Crosby became the first performer to pre-record his radio shows and master his commercial recordings on magnetic tape. He gave one of the first Ampex Model 200 recorders to his friend, musician Les Paul, which led directly to Paul’s invention of multitrack recording. Along with Frank Sinatra, he was one of the principal backers behind the famous United Western Recorders studio complex in Los Angeles.

Through the aegis of recording, Crosby developed the techniques of constructing his broadcast radio programs with the same directorial tools and craftsmanship (editing, retaking, rehearsal, time shifting) that occurred in a theatrical motion picture production. This feat directly led the way to applying the same techniques to creating all radio broadcast programming as well as later television programming. The quality of the recorded programs gave them commercial value for re-broadcast. This led the way to the syndicated market for all short feature media such as TV series episodes.

In 1962, Crosby was the first person to be recognized with the Grammy Global Achievement Award. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Father Chuck O’Malley in the 1944 motion picture Going My Way. Crosby is one of the few people to have three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Contents

1 Early life

2 Popular success

2.1 Music

2.2 Motion pictures

2.3 Television

2.4 Style

2.5 Vocal characteristics

2.6 Career statistics

3 Entrepreneurship

3.1 Mass media

3.2 Thoroughbred horse racing

4 Personal life

5 Legacy

6 Golf

7 Compositions

8 Filmography

9 Discography

10 Radio

11 RIAA certification

12 References

13 External links

//

Early life

Crosby was born in Tacoma, Washington, on May 3, 1903, in a house his father built at 1112 North J Street. His family moved to Spokane, Washington, in 1906 to find work.

He was the fourth of seven children: five boys, Larry (18951975), Everett (18961966), Ted (19001973), Harry ‘Bing’ (19031977), and Bob (19131993); and two girls, Catherine (19041974) and Mary Rose (19061990). His parents were English-American Harry Lincoln Crosby (18701950), a bookkeeper, and Irish-American Catherine Helen (affectionately known as Kate) Harrigan (18731964). Kate was the daughter of Canadian-born parents who had emigrated to Stillwater, Minnesota, from Miramichi, New Brunswick. Kate’s grandfather and grandmother, Dennis and Catherine Harrigan, had in turn moved to Canada in 1831 from Schull, County Cork, Ireland. Bing’s paternal ancestors include Governor Thomas Prence and Patience Brewster, who were both born in England and who immigrated to what would become the U.S. in the 17th century. Patience was a daughter of Elder William Brewster (pilgrim), (c. 1567 April 10, 1644), the Pilgrim leader and spiritual elder of the Plymouth Colony and a passenger on the Mayflower.

In 1910, Crosby was forever renamed. The six-year-old Harry Lillis discovered a full-page feature in the Sunday edition of the Spokesman-Review, “The Bingville Bugle.” The “Bugle,” written by humorist Newton Newkirk, was a parody of a hillbilly newsletter complete with gossipy tidbits, minstrel quips, creative spelling, and mock ads. A neighbor, 15-year-old Valentine Hobart, shared Crosby’s enthusiasm for “The Bugle,” and noting Crosby’s laugh, took a liking to him and called him “Bingo from Bingville.” The last vowel was dropped and the name shortened to “Bing,” which stuck.

In 1917, Crosby took a summer job as property boy at Spokane’s “Auditorium,” where he witnessed some of the finest acts of the day, including Al Jolson, who held Crosby spellbound with his ad-libbing and spoofs of Hawaiian songs.

In the fall of 1920, Crosby enrolled in the Jesuit-run Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, with the intention of becoming a lawyer. He sent away for a set of mail-order drums. After much practice, he soon became good enough and was invited to join a local band made up of mostly local high school kids called the “Musicaladers,” managed by Al Rinker. He made so much money doing this that he decided to drop out of school during his final year to pursue a career in show business.

Popular success

Music

In 1926, while singing at Los Angeles Metropolitan Theater, Crosby and his vocal duo partner Al Rinker caught the eye of Paul Whiteman, arguably the most famous bandleader at the time. Hired for 0 a week, they made their debut on December 6, 1926 at the Tivoli Theatre (Chicago). Their first recording, “I’ve Got The Girl,” with Don Clark’s Orchestra, was issued by Columbia and did them no vocal favors as it sounded as if they were singing in a key much too high for them. It was later revealed that the 78rpm was recorded at a speed slower than it should have been, which increased the pitch when played at 78rpm.

As popular as the Crosby and Rinker duo was, Whiteman added another member to the group, pianist and aspiring songwriter Harry Barris. Whiteman dubbed them The Rhythm Boys, and they joined the Whiteman vocal team, working and recording with musicians Bix Beiderbecke, Jack Teagarden, Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, and Eddie Lang and singers Mildred Bailey and Hoagy Carmichael.

Crosby soon became the star attraction of the Rhythm Boys, not to mention Whiteman’s band, and in 1928 had his first number one hit, a jazz-influenced rendition of “Ol’ Man River.” However, his repeated youthful peccadilloes and growing dissatisfaction with Whiteman forced him, along with the Rhythm Boys, to leave the band and join the Gus Arnheim Orchestra. During his time with Arnheim, The Rhythm Boys were increasingly pushed to the background as the vocal emphasis focused on Crosby. Fellow member of The Rhythm Boys Harry Barris wrote several of Crosby’s subsequent hits including “At Your Command,” “I Surrender Dear,” and “Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams”; however, shortly after this, the members of the band had a falling out and split, setting the stage for Crosby’s solo career. In 1931, he signed with Brunswick Records and recording under Jack Kapp and signed with CBS Radio to do a weekly 15 minute radio broadcast; almost immediately he became a huge hit.

As the 1930s unfolded, it became clear that Bing was the number one man, vocally speaking. Ten of the top 50 songs for 1931 either featured Crosby solo or with others. Apart from the short-lived “Battle of the Baritones” with Russ Columbo, “Bing Was King,” signing long-term deals with Jack Kapp’s new record company Decca and starring in his first full-length features, 1932′s The Big Broadcast, the first of 55 such films in which he received top billing. He appeared in 79 pictures.

Around this time Crosby made his solo debut on radio, co-starring with The Carl Fenton Orchestra on a popular CBS radio show, and by 1936 replacing his former boss, Paul Whiteman, as the host of NBC’s Kraft Music Hall, a weekly radio program where he remained for the next ten years. As his signature tune he used “Where the Blue of the Night (Meets the Gold of the Day)”, which also showcased his whistling skill.

He was thus able to take popular singing beyond the kind of “belting” associated with a performer like Al Jolson, who had to reach the back seats in New York theatres without the aid of the microphone. With Crosby, as Henry Pleasants noted in The Great American Popular Singers, something new had entered American music, something that might be called “singing in American,” with conversational ease. The oddity of this new sound led to the epithet “crooner.”

Crosby gave great emphasis to live appearances before American troops fighting in the European Theater. He also learned how to pronounce German from written scripts and would read them in propaganda broadcasts intended for the German forces. The nickname “der Bingle” for him was understood to have become current among German listeners, and came to be used by his English-speaking fans. In a poll of U.S. troops at the close of WWII, Crosby topped the list as the person who did the most for G.I. morale, beating out President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, General Dwight Eisenhower, and Bob Hope.

Crosby’s biggest musical hit was his recording of Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas”, which he introduced through a 1942 Christmas-season radio broadcast and the movie Holiday Inn. Crosby’s recording hit the charts on October 3, 1942, and rose to #1 on October 31, where it stayed for 11 weeks. In the following years, his recording hit the Top 30 pop charts another 16 times, topping the charts again in 1945 and January 1947. The song remains Crosby’s best-selling recording, and the best-selling single and best-selling song of all time. In 1998, after a long absence, his 1947 version hit the charts in Britain, and as of 2006[update] remains the North American holiday-season standard. According to Guinness World Records, Crosby’s recording of “White Christmas” has “sold over 100 million copies around the world, with at least 50 million sales as singles.”

Motion pictures

Crosby (1942) with golf balls for the Scrap Rubber Drive during World War II

According to ticket sales, Crosby is, at 1,077,900,000 tickets sold, the third most popular actor of all time, behind Clark Gable and John Wayne. Crosby is, according to Quigley Publishing Company’s International Motion Picture Almanac, tied for second on the “All Time Number One Stars List” with Clint Eastwood, Tom Hanks, and Burt Reynolds. Crosby’s most popular film, White Christmas, grossed million in 1954 (0 million in 2010 dollars). Crosby won an Academy Award for Best Actor for Going My Way in 1944, a role he reprised in the 1945 sequel The Bells of Saint Mary’s, for which he was nominated for another Academy Award for Best Actor. He received critical acclaim for his performance as an alcoholic entertainer in The Country Girl, receiving his third Academy Award nomination. He partnered with Bob Hope in seven Road to musical comedies between 1940 and 1962 and the two actors remained linked for generations in general public perception as arguably the most popular screen team in film history, despite never officially declaring themselves a “team” in the sense that Laurel and Hardy or Martin and Lewis were teams.

By the late 1950s, Crosby’s popularity had peaked, and the adolescence of the baby boom generation began to affect record sales to younger customers. In 1960, Crosby starred in High Time, a collegiate comedy with Fabian and Tuesday Weld that foretold the emerging gap between older Crosby fans and a new generation of films and music.

Television

The Fireside Theater (1950) was Crosby’s first television production. The series of 26-minute shows was filmed at Hal Roach Studios rather than performed live on the air. The “telefilms” were syndicated to individual television stations.

Crosby was one of the most frequent guests on the musical variety shows of the 1950s and 1960s. He was especially closely associated with ABC’s variety show The Hollywood Palace. He was the show’s most frequent guest host and appeared annually on its Christmas edition with his wife Kathryn and his younger children. In the early 1970s he made two famous late appearances on the Flip Wilson Show, singing duets with the comedian. Crosby’s last TV appearance was a Christmas special filmed in London in September 1977 and aired just weeks after his death.

Bing Crosby Productions, affiliated with Desilu Studios and later CBS Television Studios, produced a number of television series, including Crosby’s own unsuccessful ABC sitcom The Bing Crosby Show in the 19641965 season (with co-stars Beverly Garland and Frank McHugh), and two ABC medical dramas, Ben Casey (19611966) and Breaking Point (196364), and the popular Hogan’s Heroes military comedy on CBS, as well as the lesser-known show Slattery’s People (19641965).

Style

Crosby perfected an idea that Al Jolson had hinted at, that the popular performer did not have to limit himself to a mere series of shticks but could be a genuine artist in this case, a musician. Before Crosby, art was art and pop was pop; opera singers worried about staying in tune and reaching the upper balcony, vaudevillians concerned themselves with their costumes and facial expressions.

Crosby rendered the difference between the two irrelevant. Where earlier recording artists had displayed strictly one-dimensional attitudes, Crosby not only perfected the fully rounded persona, but brought with it the technical ability of a true concert artist. Crosby projected with a majestic sense of intonation that afforded Tin Pan Alley the musical stature of European classics and a jazz-influenced time that made him the dominant voice of both the Jazz age and the Swing era.

Crosby also elaborated on a further idea of Al Jolson’s, one that Frank Sinatra would ultimately extend: phrasing, or the art of making a song’s lyric ring true. “I used to tell (Sinatra) over and over,” said Tommy Dorsey, “there’s only one singer you ought to listen to and his name is Crosby. All that matters to him is the words, and that’s the only thing that ought to for you, too.”

The greatest trick of Crosby’s virtuosity was covering it up. It is often said that Crosby made his singing and acting “look easy,” or as if it were no work at all: he simply was the character he portrayed, and his singing, being a direct extension of conversation, came just as naturally to him as talking, or even breathing. Journalist Donald Freeman said of Crosby, “There is only one Bing Crosby and the time has come now to face the issue squarely he happens to be that unique, awesome creature, an artist.”

Vocal characteristics

Crosby with Bob Hope in Road to Bali (1952)

Crosby is usually considered to be among the most talented singers of his time. Crosby could, as musicologist J.T.H. Mize asserts, “melt a tone away, scoop it flat and sliding up to the eventual pitch as a glissando, sometimes sting a note right on the button, and take diphthongs for long musical rides.”[citation needed] J.T.H. Mize also inventoried the Crosby arsenal of vocal effects, including “interpolating pianissimo whistling variations, sometimes arpeggic, at other times trilling.”[citation needed] While vocal critic Henry Pleasants states that “the octave B flat to B flat in Bing’s voice at that time [1930s] is, to my ears, one of the loveliest I have heard in forty-five years of listening to baritones, both classical and popular, it dropped conspicuously in later years. From the mid-1950s, Bing was more comfortable in a bass range while maintaining a baritone quality, with the best octave being G to G, or even F to F. In a recording he made of ‘Dardanella’ with Louis Armstrong in 1960, he attacks lightly and easily on a low E flat. This is lower than most opera basses care to venture, and they tend to sound as if they were in the cellar when they get there.” Mel Torm concurred with Henry Pleasants stating that “(Crosby’s) low notes could make your bass woofers beg for mercy.”[citation needed]

Career statistics

Crosby’s sales and chart statistics place him among the most popular and successful musical acts of the 20th century. Although the Billboard charts operated under a different methodology for the bulk of Crosby’s career, his numbers remain astonishing: 1,700 recordings, 383 of those in the top 30, and of those, 41 hit #1. Crosby had separate charting singles in every calendar year between 1931 and 1954; the annual re-release of White Christmas extended that streak to 1957. He had 24 separate popular singles in 1939 alone. Billboard’s statistician Joel Whitburn determined Crosby to be America’s most successful act of the 1930s, and again in the 1940s.

Crosby with Danny Kaye in White Christmas (1954)

For 15 years (1934, 1937, 1940, 19431954), Crosby was among the top 10 in box office draw, and for five of those years (19441949) he was the largest in the world. He sang four Academy Award-winning songs “Sweet Leilani” (1937), “White Christmas” (1942), “Swinging on a Star” (1944), “In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening” (1951) and won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Going My Way (1944).

He collected 23 gold and platinum records, according to Joseph Murrells, author of the book, “Million Selling Records.” The Recording Industry Association of America did not institute its gold record certification program until 1958, by which point Crosby’s record sales were barely a blip, so gold records prior to that year were awarded by an artist’s record company. Universal Music, current owner of Crosby’s Decca catalog, has never requested RIAA certification for any of his hit singles.

In 1962, Crosby became the first recipient of the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He has been inducted into the halls of fame for both radio and popular music. Crosby is a member of the exclusive club of the biggest record sellers that include Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Garth Brooks and The Beatles.

In 2007 Crosby was inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame, and in 2008 into the Western Music Hall of Fame.

Entrepreneurship

Mass media

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Crosby’s radio career took a significant turn in 1945, when he clashed with NBC over his insistence that he be allowed to pre-record his radio shows. (The live production of radio shows was also reinforced by the musicians’ union and ASCAP.) Historian John Dunning, in On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio, has written that Crosby having discovered German engineers developed a tape recorder and improved them to a near-professional standard saw “an enormous advantage in prerecording his radio shows. The scheduling could now be done at the star’s convenience. He could do four shows a week, if he chose, and then take a month off. But the networks and sponsors were adamantly opposed. The public wouldn’t stand for ‘canned’ radio, the networks argued. There was something magic for listeners in the fact that what they were hearing was being performed, and heard everywhere, at that precise instant. Some of the best moments in comedy came when a line was blown and the star had to rely on wit to rescue a bad situation. Fred Allen, Jack Benny, Phil Harris, and, yes, Crosby were masters at this, and the networks weren’t about to give it up easily.”

Crosby’s influence eventually factored into the further development of magnetic tape sound recording and the radio industry’s adoption of it. He used his power to innovate new methods of reproducing audio of himself. But with NBC (and competitor CBS) refusing to allow recorded radio programs (except for advertisements and occasional promotional material), Crosby walked away from the network and stayed off the air for seven months, causing a legal battle with Kraft, his sponsor, that was settled out of court and put Crosby back on the air for the last 13 weeks of the 19451946 season.

The Mutual network, on the other hand, had pre-recorded some of its programs as early as the Summer 1938 run of The Shadow with Orson Welles, and the new ABC network formed out of the sale of the old NBC Blue network in 1943 to Edward Noble, the “Life Savers King,” following a federal anti-trust action was willing to join Mutual in breaking the tradition. ABC offered Crosby ,000 per week to produce a recorded show every Wednesday sponsored by Philco. He would also get ,000 from 400 independent stations for the rights to broadcast the 30-minute show that was sent to them every Monday on three 16-inch lacquer/aluminum discs that played ten minutes per side at 33 rpm.

Crosby wanted to change to recorded production for several reasons. The legend that has been most often told is that it would give him more time for his golf game. And he did record his first Philco program in August 1947 so he could enter the Jasper National Park Invitational Golf Tournament in September when the new radio season was to start. But golf was not the most important reason.

Crosby was always an early riser and hard worker, and Dunning and other radio historians have noted that, even while acknowledging he wanted more time to tend his other business and leisure activities. But he also sought better quality through recording, including being able to eliminate mistakes and control the timing of his show performances. Because his own Bing Crosby Enterprises produced the show, he could purchase the latest and best sound equipment and arrange the microphones his way; mic placement had long been a hotly-debated issue in every recording studio since the beginning of the electrical era. No longer would he have to wear the hated toupee on his head previously required by CBS and NBC for his live audience shows (he preferred a hat). He could also record short promotions for his latest investment, the world’s first frozen orange juice to be sold under the brand name Minute Maid.

The transcription method had problems, however. The acetate surface coating of the aluminum discs was little better than the wax that Edison had used at the turn of the century, with the same limited dynamic range and frequency response.

But Murdo MacKenzie of Bing Crosby Enterprises saw a demonstration of the German Magnetophon in June 1947, one that Jack Mullin had brought back from Radio Frankfurt with 50 reels of tape at the end of the war. This machine was one of the magnetic tape recorders that BASF and AEG had built in Germany starting in 1935. The -inch ferric-coated tape could record 20 minutes per reel of high-quality sound. Alexander M. Poniatoff ordered his Ampex company (founded in 1944 from his initials A.M.P. plus the starting letters of “excellence”) to manufacture an improved version of the Magnetophone.

Crosby hired Mullin and his German machine to start recording his Philco Radio Time show in August 1947, with the same 50 reels of Farben magnetic tape that Mullin had found at a radio station at Bad Nauheim near Frankfurt while working for the U.S. Army Signal Corps. The crucial advantage was editing. As Crosby wrote in his autobiography, “By using tape, I could do a thirty-five or forty-minute show, then edit it down to the twenty-six or twenty-seven minutes the program ran. In that way, we could take out jokes, gags, or situations that didn’t play well and finish with only the prime meat of the show; the solid stuff that played big. We could also take out the songs that didn’t sound good. It gave us a chance to first try a recording of the songs in the afternoon without an audience, then another one in front of a studio audience. We’d dub the one that came off best into the final transcription. It gave us a chance to ad lib as much as we wanted, knowing that excess ad libbing could be sliced from the final product. If I made a mistake in singing a song or in the script, I could have some fun with it, then retain any of the fun that sounded amusing.”

Mullin’s 1976 memoir of these early days of experimental recording agrees with Crosby’s account: “In the evening, Crosby did the whole show before an audience. If he muffed a song then, the audience loved it thought it was very funny but we would have to take out the show version and put in one of the rehearsal takes. Sometimes, if Crosby was having fun with a song and not really working at it, we had to make it up out of two or three parts. This ad lib way of working is commonplace in the recording studios today, but it was all new to us.”

Crosby invested US,000 in Ampex to produce more machines. In 1948, the second season of Philco shows was taped with the new Ampex Model 200 tape recorder (introduced in April) using the new Scotch 111 tape from the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing (3M) company. Mullin explained that new techniques were invented on the Crosby show with these machines: “One time Bob Burns, the hillbilly comic, was on the show, and he threw in a few of his folksy farm stories, which of course were not in Bill Morrow’s script. Today they wouldn’t seem very off-color, but things were different on radio then. They got enormous laughs, which just went on and on. We couldn’t use the jokes, but Bill asked us to save the laughs. A couple of weeks later he had a show that wasn’t very funny, and he insisted that we put in the salvaged laughs. Thus the laugh-track was born.” Crosby had launched the tape recorder revolution in America. In his 1950 film Mr. Music, Bing Crosby can be seen singing into one of the new Ampex tape recorders that reproduced his voice better than anything else. Also quick to adopt tape recording was his friend Bob Hope, who would make the famous “Road to…” films with Crosby and Dorothy Lamour.

Mullin continued to work for Crosby to develop a videotape recorder. Television production was mostly live in its early years, but Crosby wanted the same ability to record that he had achieved in radio. The Fireside Theater, sponsored by Procter and Gamble, was his first television production for the 1950 season. Mullin had not yet succeeded with videotape, so Crosby filmed the series of 26-minute shows at the Hal Roach Studios. The “telefilms” were syndicated to individual television stations.

Crosby did not remain a television producer but continued to finance the development of videotape. Bing Crosby Enterprises (BCE), gave the world’s first demonstration of a videotape recording in Los Angeles on November 11, 1951. Developed by John T. Mullin and Wayne R. Johnson since 1950, the device gave what were described as “blurred and indistinct” images, using a modified Ampex 200 tape recorder and standard quarter-inch (0.6 cm) audio tape moving at 360 inches (9.1 m) per second. Mullin demonstrated an improved picture on December 30, 1952, but he was not able to solve the problem of high tape speed. It was the Ampex team led by Charles Ginsburg that made the first videotape recorder. Rather than speeding tape across fixed heads at 100 ips, Ginsburg used rotating heads to record video tracks transversely at a slant across the tape’s width on 2-inch-wide tape moving at only 15 ips. The quadruplex scan model VR-1000 was demonstrated at the National Association of Broadcasters show in Chicago on April 14, 1956, and was an immediate success. Ampex made million in sales during the NAB convention. By this time, Crosby had sold his videotape interests to the 3M company and no longer played the role of tape recorder pioneer. Yet his contribution had been crucial. He had opened the door to Mullin’s machine in 1948 and financed the early years of the Ampex company. The rapid spread of the tape recorder revolution was in no small measure caused by Crosby’s efforts.

The decade following the end of World War II witnessed what has been called the “revolution in sound.” The Decca Company introduced FFRR (Full Frequency Range Recording) 78 rpm records that had the finest frequency response (8015,000 cps) of any recording process before magnetic tape recording. Decca’s method of reducing the size of the groove and designing a delicate elliptical stylus to track on the sides of the groove would be the same innovation of the new microgroove process introduced by Columbia in 1948 on the new 33 rpm LP vinyl record. Crosby’s sponsor Philco would join Columbia in selling a new .95 record player with jeweled stylus (not steel) tracking at only 10 grams (not 200) for these LPs. No longer would records wear out after 75 plays. Crosby’s Ampex Company would be joined by Magnecord, Webcor, Revere, and Fairchild in selling one million tape recorders to a rapidly growing consumer audio component market by 1953. The 1949 Magnecord tape recorder had stereo capability eight years before any vinyl record had it. These components soon began to feature the transistor invented by Bell Labs in 1948.

Thoroughbred horse racing

Crosby was a fan of Thoroughbred horse racing and bought his first racehorse in 1935. In 1937, he became a founding partner and member of the Board of Directors of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club that built and operated the Del Mar Racetrack at Del Mar, California. One of Crosby’s closest friends was Lindsay Howard, for whom he named his son Lindsay and from whom he would purchase his 40-room Hillsborough estate in 1965. Lindsay Howard was the son of millionaire businessman Charles S. Howard, who owned a successful racing stable that included Seabiscuit. Charles S. Howard joined Crosby as a founding partner and director of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club.

Crosby and Lindsay Howard formed Binglin Stable to race and breed thoroughbred horses at a ranch in Moorpark in Ventura County, California. They also established the Binglin stock farm in Argentina, where they raced horses at Hipdromo de Palermo in Palermo, Buenos Aires. Binglin stable purchased a number of Argentine-bred horses and shipped them back to race in the United States. On August 12, 1938, the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club hosted a ,000 winner-take-all match race won by Charles S. Howard’s Seabiscuit over Binglin Stable’s Ligaroti. Binglin’s horse Don Bingo won the 1943 Suburban Handicap at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York.

The Binglin Stable partnership came to an end in 1953 as a result of a liquidation of assets by Crosby in order to raise the funds necessary to pay the federal and state inheritance taxes on his deceased wife’s estate.

A friend of jockey Johnny Longden, Crosby was a co-owner with Longden’s friend Max Bell of the British colt Meadow Court, which won the 1965 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes and the Irish Derby. In the Irish Derby’s winner’s circle at the Curragh, Crosby sang “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.”

The Bing Crosby Breeders’ Cup Handicap at Del Mar Racetrack is named in his honor.

Personal life

Crosby was married twice, first to actress/nightclub singer Dixie Lee from 1930 until her death from ovarian cancer in 1952. They had four sons: Gary, twins Dennis and Phillip, and Lindsay. The 1947 film Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman is indirectly based on her life. After Dixie’s death, Crosby had a relationship with actress Inger Stevens and with Grace Kelly before marrying the actress Kathryn Grant in 1957. They had three children, Harry (who played Bill in Friday the 13th), Mary (best known for portraying Kristin Shepard, the woman who shot J.R. Ewing on TV’s Dallas), and Nathaniel.

Crosby was a member of the Roman Catholic Church. Kathryn converted to Roman Catholicism in order to marry him. He was also a Republican, and actively campaigned for Wendell Willkie in 1940, asserting his belief that Franklin Roosevelt should serve only two terms. When Willkie lost, he decreed that he would never again make any open political contributions.

Crosby had an interest in sports. From 1946 until the end of his life, he was part-owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates and helped form the nucleus of the Pirates’ 1960 championship club. In 1978, he and Bob Hope were voted the Bob Jones Award, the highest honor given by the United States Golf Association in recognition of distinguished sportsmanship in golf.

Crosby reportedly overindulged in alcohol in his youth, and may have been dismissed from Paul Whiteman’s orchestra because of it, but he later got a handle on his drinking. A 2001 biography of Crosby by Village Voice jazz critic Gary Giddins says that Louis Armstrong’s influence on Crosby “extended to his love of marijuana.” Bing smoked it during his early career when it was legal and “surprised interviewers” in the 1960s and 70s by advocating its decriminalization, as did Armstrong. According to Giddins, Crosby told his son Gary to stay away from alcohol (“It killed your mother”) and suggested he smoke pot instead. Gary said, “There were other times when marijuana was mentioned and he’d get a smile on his face.” Gary thought his father’s pot smoking had influenced his easy-going style in his films. Crosby also smoked two packs of cigarettes a day until his second wife made him stop. He finally quit smoking his pipe and cigars following lung surgery in 1974.

Following his recovery from a life-threatening fungal infection of his right lung in 1974, Crosby emerged from semi-retirement to produce several notable albums and concert tours. In March 1977, after videotaping a concert for CBS to commemorate his 50th anniversary in show business, Crosby backed off the stage into an orchestra pit, rupturing a disc in his back that required a month of hospitalization. In his first performance after the accident and his last American concert, on August 16, 1977 in Concord, California, the power went out, and he continued singing without amplification. In September, Crosby, his family, and singer Rosemary Clooney began a concert tour of England that included two weeks at the London Palladium. While in England, Crosby recorded his final album, Seasons, and his final TV Christmas special with guests David Bowie and Twiggy. His duet with Bowie on “Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy,” generated so much interest that it was later released as a single and became an annual holiday classic. At the end of the century, TV Guide listed the Crosby-Bowie duet as one of the 25 most memorable musical moments of 20th century television.

His last concert was in the The Brighton Centre two days before his death, with British entertainer Dame Gracie Fields in attendance. Crosby’s last photograph was taken with Fields.

At the conclusion of his work in England, Crosby flew alone to Spain to hunt and play golf. Shortly after 6:00 p.m. on October 14, Crosby died suddenly from a massive heart attack after a round of 18 holes of golf near Madrid where he and his Spanish golfing partner had just defeated their opponents. It is widely written that his last words were “That was a great game of golf, fellas.” Because of incorrect instructions from his family, the year of birth engraved on Crosby’s tombstone is 1904 rather than 1903. He was interred in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California, next to his first wife. He was buried nine feet deep so that his second wife could be buried with him.

At his death, because of Crosby’s shrewd investments in oil, real estate, and other commodities, he was one of Hollywood’s wealthiest residents, along with Fred MacMurray, Lawrence Welk, and best friend Bob Hope. A clause in his will stated that his sons from his first marriage could not collect their inheritance money until they were 65. Crosby felt that they had already been amply taken care of by a trust fund set up by their mother, Dixie Lee. All four sons continued to collect monies from that fund until their deaths.

After Crosby’s death, his eldest son, Gary, wrote a highly critical memoir, Going My Own Way, depicting his father as cold, remote, and both physically and psychologically abusive.

Younger son Phillip frequently disputed his brother Gary’s claims about their father. In an interview conducted in 1999 by the Globe, Phillip said, “My dad was not the monster my lying brother said he was; he was strict, but my father never beat us black and blue, and my brother Gary was a vicious, no-good liar for saying so. I have nothing but fond memories of Dad, going to studios with him, family vacations at our cabin in Idaho, boating and fishing with him. To my dying day, I’ll hate Gary for dragging Dad’s name through the mud. He wrote Going My Own Way out of greed. He wanted to make money and knew that humiliating our father and blackening his name was the only way he could do it. He knew it would generate a lot of publicity. That was the only way he could get his ugly, no-talent face on television and in the newspapers. My dad was my hero. I loved him very much. He loved all of us too, including Gary. He was a great father.”

However, Lindsay and Dennis publicly agreed with many of Gary’s criticisms of their father and Lindsay eventually committed suicide. Dennis ended his life two years later, grieving over his brother’s death, and battered, just as his brother had been, by alcoholism, failed relationships, and a lackluster career. Both brothers died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds to the head. Their mother had struggled with alcoholism since her teens.

Phillip Crosby died in 2004.

Denise Crosby, Dennis’ daughter, is also an actress and known for her role as Tasha Yar on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and for the recurring role of the Romulan Sela (daughter of Tasha Yar) after her withdrawal from the series as a regular cast member. She also appeared in the film adaptation of Stephen King’s novel Pet Sematary.

Nathaniel Crosby, Crosby’s youngest son from his second marriage, was a high-level golfer who won the U.S. Amateur at age 19 in 1981, the youngest winner of that event (a record later broken by Tiger Woods). Nathaniel praised his father in a June 16, 2008, Sports Illustrated article.

Widow Kathryn Crosby dabbled in local theater productions intermittently, and appeared in television tributes to her late husband. Although left very comfortable in Crosby’s will, Kathryn’s allowance was controlled by a foundation that Crosby had carefully set up.

In 2006, Crosby’s niece, Carolyn Schneider, attempted to dispel the impressions created by some of the more vitriolic books penned about her uncle, publishing “Me and Uncle Bing,” in which she offered an intimate glimpse of her family, and gratitude for Crosby’s generosity to her and to other family members. Since publication of her book, Schneider has been a favorite at gatherings of Crosby fans, and has offered her memories of “Uncle Bing” to the BBC.

Legacy

Crosby’s childhood home in Spokane, Washington is the Alumni Association office for Gonzaga University. His dorm blanket hangs in the stairwell, and other memorabilia are on the first floor and in the “Crosbyana Room” at the Crosby Student Center, where his Oscar for Going My Way is on display. A statue of Crosby is at the front steps of the student center, although his pipe has frequently been stolen as a prank. There is a campus legend that Crosby was asked to leave Gonzaga after trying (and failing) to use a pulley to bring a piano to his fourth floor dorm room in DeSmet Hall; the piano reportedly shattered on the ground below. However, the story is apocryphal, as the dorm in question was not built until a year after Crosby left Gonzaga. In 2006, the Met Theater in Spokane, Washington was renamed “The Bing Crosby Theater” in his honor.

He is a member of the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame in the radio division.

The family has established an official website. It was launched October 14, 2007, the 30th anniversary of Bing’s death.

In his 1990 autobiography Don’t Shoot, It’s Only Me! Bob Hope states, “Dear old Bing. As we called him, the Economy-sized Sinatra. And what a voice. God I miss that voice. I can’t even turn on the radio around Christmastime without crying anymore.”

Golf

Crosby is a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame. Aside from Bobby Jones and Arnold Palmer, Crosby may be the person most responsible for popularizing the game of golf. Since 1937 the ‘Crosby Clambake’ as it was popularly knownow the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Amas been a leading event in the world of professional golf. Crosby first took up the game at 12 as a caddy, dropped it, and started again in 1930 with some fellow cast members in Hollywood during the filming of The King of Jazz. Although he made his name as a singer, vaudeville performer, and silver screen luminary, he would probably prefer to be remembered as a two handicap who competed in both the British and U.S. Amateur championships, a five-time club champion at Lakeside Golf Club in Hollywood, and as one of only a few players to have made a hole-in-one on the 16th at Cypress Point.

He conceived his tournament as a friendly little pro-am for his fellow members at Lakeside Golf Club and any stray touring pros who could use some pocket change. The first Clambake was played at Rancho Santa Fe C.C., in northern San Diego county, where Crosby was a member. He kicked in ,000 of his own money for the purse, which led inaugural champion Sam Snead to ask if he might get his 0 in cash instead of a check. Snead’s suspicions notwithstanding, the tournament was a rollicking success, thanks to the merry membership of Lakeside, an entertainment industry enclave in North Hollywood. That first tournament set the precedent for all that followed as it was as much about partying as it was about golf.

The tournament, revived on the Monterey Peninsula in 1947, has as of 2009 raised million for local charities.

Compositions

Crosby co-wrote 15 songs. His composition “At Your Command” was no.1 for three weeks on the U.S. pop singles chart in 1931, beginning with the week of August 8, 1931. “I Don’t Stand a Ghost of a Chance With You” was his most successful composition, recorded by Duke Ellington, Linda Ronstadt, Thelonious Monk, Billie Holiday, and Mildred Bailey. The songs Crosby co-wrote are:

“That’s Grandma” (1927), with Harry Barris and James Cavanaugh

“From Monday On” (1928), with Harry Barris and recorded with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra featuring Bix Beiderbecke on cornet

“What Price Lyrics?” (1928), with Harry Barris and Matty Malneck

“At Your Command” (1931), with Harry Barris and Harry Tobias

“Where the Blue of the Night (Meets the Gold of the Day)” (1931), with Roy Turk and Fred Ahlert

“I Don’t Stand a Ghost of a Chance with You” (1932), with Victor Young and Ned Washington

“My Woman” (1932), with Irving Wallman and Max Wartell

“Love Me Tonight” (1932), with Victor Young and Ned Washington

“Waltzing in a Dream” (1932), with Victor Young and Ned Washington

“I Would If I Could But I Can’t” (1933), with Mitchell Parish and Alan Grey

“Where the Turf Meets the Surf” (1941)

“Tenderfoot” (1953)

“Domenica” (1961)

“That’s What Life is All About” (1975)

“Sail Away to Norway” (1977)

Filmography

Main article: Bing Crosby filmography

Discography

Main article: Bing Crosby discography

Radio

The Radio Singers (1931, CBS), sponsored by Warner Brothers, 6 nights a week, 15 minutes.

The Cremo Singer (19311932, CBS), 6 nights a week, 15 minutes.

Unsponsored (1932, CBS), initially 3 nights a week, then twice a week, 15 minutes.

Chesterfield’s Music that Satisfies (1933, CBS), broadcast two nights, 15 minutes.

Bing Crosby Entertains for Woodbury Soap (19331935, CBS), weekly, 30 minutes.

Kraft Music Hall (19351946, NBC), Thursday nights, 60 minutes until Jan. 1943, then 30 minutes.

Armed Forces Radio (19411945; World War II).

Philco Radio Time (19461949, ABC), 30 minutes weekly.

The Bing Crosby Chesterfield Show (19491952, CBS), 30 minutes weekly.

The Minute Maid Show (19491950, CBS), 15 minutes each weekday morning; Bing as disc jockey.

The General Electric Show (19521954, CBS), 30 minutes weekly.

The Bing Crosby Show (19541956, CBS), 15 minutes, 5 nights a week.

A Christmas Sing with Bing (19551962, CBS, VOA and AFRS), 1 hour each year, sponsored by the Insurance Company of North America.

The Ford Road Show (19571958, CBS), 5 minutes, 5 days a week.

The Bing Crosby – Rosemary Clooney Show (19581962, CBS), 20 minutes, 5 mornings a week, with Rosemary Clooney.

RIAA certification

Album

RIAA

Merry Christmas

Gold

Bing sings

2x platinum

White Christmas

4x platinum

References

^ a b Grudens, 2002, p. 236. “Bing was born on May 3, 1903. He always believed he was born on May 2, 1904.”

^ Music Genre: Vocal music.Allmusic. Retrieved October 23, 2008.

^ “Bing Crosby Billboard Biography”. Billboard. http://www.billboard.com/artist/bing-crosby/3574#/artist/bing-crosby/bio/3574. Retrieved 2009-10-28. 

^ Giddins, 2001, p. 8.

^ Gilliland, John. Pop Chronicles the 40′s: The Lively Story of Pop Music in the 40′s. ISBN 9781559351478. OCLC 31611854. , cassette 1, side B.

^ Giddins, 2001, p. 6.

^ a b Hoffman, Dr. Frank. “Crooner”. http://www.jeffosretromusic.com/bing.html. Retrieved 2006-12-29. 

^ Cogan, Jim and William Clark. Temples Of Sound: Inside the Great Recording Studios, p. 36. (Chronicle Books, 2003) ISBN 0-8118-3394-1

^ “Lifetime Achievement Award. ”Past Recipients””. Grammy.com. 2009-02-08. http://www.grammy.com/Recording_Academy/Awards/Lifetime_Awards/. Retrieved 2010-02-10. 

^ Bing Crosby had no birth certificate and his birth date was unconfirmed until his childhood Roman Catholic church in Tacoma, Washington, released the baptismal record that revealed his date of birth.

^ Gary Giddins, Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams, 2001.

^ Giddins, 2001, p. 24.

^ Guinness Book of Records 2007: ISBN 1-904994-11-3

^ “Crosby Movies”. Waynesthisandthat.com. http://www.waynesthisandthat.com/crosbymovies.html. Retrieved 2010-02-10. 

^ Top 10 lists.

^ Crosby Movies.

^ “Johnny Bond – WMA Hall of Fame”. Westernmusic.com. http://www.westernmusic.com/performers/hof-crosby.html. Retrieved 2010-02-10. 

^ Hammar, Peter. Jack Mullin: The man and his machines. Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, 37 (6): 490496, 498, 500, 502, 504, 506, 508, 510, 512; June 1989.

^ An afternoon with Jack Mullin. NTSC VHS tape, 1989 AES.

^ History of Magnetic tape, section: “Enter Bing Crosby” (WayBack Machine)

^ “Tape Recording Used by Filmless ‘Camera’,” New York Times, Nov. 12, 1951, p. 21. Eric D. Daniel, C. Denis Mee, and Mark H. Clark (eds.), Magnetic Recording: The First 100 Years, IEEE Press, 1998, p. 141. ISBN 0-070-41275-8

^ “Time Magazine Article”. Time Magazine. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,822904,00.html. Retrieved 2007-01-25. 

^ a b c Giddins, 2001, p. 181.

^ “The Bing dynasty: on the 100th anniversary of Crosby’s birth, we celebrate the granddaddy of celebrity golf”. Golf Digest. 2003-05. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HFI/is_5_54/ai_101967390. Retrieved 2008-11-02. 

^ Grudens, 2002, p. 59.

^ “Philip Crosby, 69, Son of Bing Crosby”. New York Times. 2004-01-20. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A01E5D61439F933A15752C0A9629C8B63. Retrieved 2008-11-02. 

^ Bamberger, Michael (2008-06-09). “Sports Illustrated. Nathaniel Crosby”. Golf.com. http://www.golf.com/golf/tours_news/article/0,28136,1812977,00.html. Retrieved 2010-02-10. 

^ “NAB Hall of Fame”. National Association of Broadcasters. http://www.nab.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Awards7&CONTENTID=11047&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm. Retrieved 2008-05-03. 

^ “The Official Home of Bing Crosby”. Bingcrosby.com. http://www.BingCrosby.com. Retrieved 2008-11-02. 

^ Don’t Shoot, It’s Only Me! Bob Hope, 1990, Random House Publishers

^ “World Golf Hall of Fame Member Profile”. Wgv.com. http://www.wgv.com/hof/member.php?member=1040. Retrieved 2010-02-10. 

^ “About the Monterey Peninsula Foundation”. http://www.attpbgolf.com/charities/about-mpf.php. Retrieved 2009-12-15. 

^ “RIAA certification”. Archived from the original on 2007-06-08. http://web.archive.org/web/20070608063448/http://www.riaa.com/gp/database/default.asp. 

Bibliography

Giddins, Gary (2001). Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams The Early Years, 19031940. Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0-316-88188-0. http://books.google.com/books?id=Oa2_zcwucAgC. 

Grudens, Richard (2002). Bing Crosby Crooner of the Century. Celebrity Profiles Publishing Co.. ISBN 1575792486. http://books.google.com/books?id=Mkz_w-WYiMAC. 

Macfarlane, Malcolm. Bing Crosby Day By Day. Scarecrow Press, 2001.

Osterholm, J. Roger. Bing Crosby: A Bio-Bibliography. Greenwood Press, 1994.

Prigozy, R. & Raubicheck, W., ed. Going My Way: Bing Crosby and American Culture. The Boydell Press, 2007.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Bing Crosby

Bing Crosby’s Official Site

Bing Crosby on Facebook

Bing Crosby on Twitter

Bing Crosby at the Internet Movie Database

Bing Crosby at the TCM Movie Database

Bing Crosby at the Internet Broadway Database

Bing Crosby Internet Museum (site off-line as of January 26, 2010)

The Bing Crosby Discography

Bing Crosby Collection at Gonzaga University

Most Popular Entertainer of the Twentieth Century

Most popular Singers of the 20th century

Conference Bing Crosby (November 2002)

Bing Crosby Article by Dr. Frank Hoffmann

The International Club Crosby Fan Club

BING magazine (a publication of the ICC)

“Bing still matters” (2007) by Ted Nesi, The Sun Chronicle

Bob Hope: The Road to Bed in TimesOnline

Bing Crosby at Find a Grave

Bing Crosby Official 10″ (78Rpm) Discography

v  d  e

Academy Award for Best Actor

Gary Cooper (1941)  James Cagney (1942)  Paul Lukas (1943)  Bing Crosby (1944)  Ray Milland (1945)  Fredric March (1946)  Ronald Colman (1947)  Laurence Olivier (1948)  Broderick Crawford (1949)  Jos Ferrer (1950)  Humphrey Bogart (1951)  Gary Cooper (1952)  William Holden (1953)  Marlon Brando (1954)  Ernest Borgnine (1955)  Yul Brynner (1956)  Alec Guinness (1957)  David Niven (1958)  Charlton Heston (1959)  Burt Lancaster (1960)

Complete List  (19281940)  (19411960)  (19611980)  (19812000)  (2001resent)

Persondata

NAME

Crosby, Bing

ALTERNATIVE NAMES

Crosby, Harry Lillis

SHORT DESCRIPTION

Singer, actor

DATE OF BIRTH

May 3, 1903(1903-05-03)

PLACE OF BIRTH

Tacoma, Washington, United States

DATE OF DEATH

October 14, 1977

PLACE OF DEATH

Madrid, Spain

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Tupac Amaru Shakur was born in the East Harlem section of Manhattan in New York City.[4] He was named after Túpac Amaru II, an Incan revolutionary who led an indigenous uprising against Spain and subsequently received capital punishment. His mother, Afeni Shakur, was an active member of the Black Panther Party in New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s; Shakur was born just one month after her acquittal on more than 150 charges of “Conspiracy against the United States government and New York landmarks” in the New York Panther 21 court case.[5] Although officially unconfirmed by the Shakur family,[6] several sources list his birth name as either “Parish Lesane Crooks”[7] or “Lesane Parish Crooks”.[8] Afeni feared her enemies would attack her son, and disguised their relation using a different last name, only to change it three months[7] or a year later, following her marriage to Mutulu Shakur. Born in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York City, New York, Biggie was the only child to Voletta Wallace, a pre-school teacher of Jamaican origin, and George Letore, a welder and small-time Jamaican politician.[6] His father left the family when Biggie was two years old, leaving his mother to work two jobs while raising him. At the Queen of All Saints Middle School, Biggie excelled in class, winning several awards as an English student. He was nicknamed “Big” because of his size before he turned ten years old.[7] From the age of twelve, he sold drugs, unbeknownst …

The Great Continental Divide in the Western States in America defines water running east or west. Not just a geologic formation in its younger age 100 million years ago, this awesome and continent defining set of snow-capped mountains offers the barrier of imagination through which migrating Americans traveled to come to what are now States like California (38 million residents).   
 

Like a book of facts, the majestic formations that characterized this area of the world are spiced even by its denizens, its citizens, its friends as a part of the Pacific Rim. In these words, seemingly encyclopedic in their arrangement and tone, turn to the more man made, the humble, the unusual in the Wild West where in a City named Oakland, situated on San Francisco Bay and sharing with its more romantic and celebrated sister San Francisco the recognition that the construction of a modern Roman Catholic Cathedral captures the visual and religious sensibilities of the diverse worshipers of what these residents, mere humans with a lifetime so short, have built to their God with skill and style and up-to-date techniques for its 600 thousand or more Diocesan members use. A holy place, a Benedictine Monk told this writer, a place of worship, and a House of God this Cathedral of Christ the Light as it is called was a work of devotion and love.    

The Cathedral’s altar contains relics, inserted and sealed in the stone. The holy persons represented are Andrew, apostle; Thomas, apostle; Stephen, deacon and first Christian martyr; Sixtus II, pope from 257 to 258 and martyr; Perpetua, a young wife and new mother martyred in North Africa in 203; Cecilia, Roman martyr of the third century; early Christian martyrs Restituta and Speusippus; Francis of Assisi, founder of the Order of Friars Minor, the Franciscans (1181-1226); Colette of Corbie, Poor Clare who established many reformed monasteries (1381-1447); Francis de Sales, bishop and spiritual writer (1567-1622); Junipero Serra, Franciscan President of the California missions (1713-1784); John Vianney, parish priest (1786-1859); Pius X, pope who allowed children to receive Holy Communion (1835-1914). Two additional, unusual contents of the reliquary are soil from Auschwitz, commemorating the victims of the Holocaust (especially Saints Maximillian Kolbe and Teresa Benedicta [Edith] Stein) and a rock from Calvary.    

The firm responsible for the construction and design is Skidmore, Owens, and Merrill with lead architect and designer Craig Hartman. Mr. Hartman is currently working on a second Roman Catholic Cathedral in California, and so was not available for interview. Skidmore, Owings and Merrill supplied this writer with an excellent video presentation that introduces the design concepts in a talk by architect Craig Hartman. Note that Mr. Hartman has numerous important prizes for the work he did on the Cathedral.    

In a Press Statement, Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill says:    

Set on a prominent, two-block site overlooking Oakland’s Lake Merritt, the 1350-seat cathedral is the centerpiece of a 224,000-square-foot complex that includes a mausoleum, conference center, administrative offices, bishop’s and clergy residences, bookstore, café, and community-serving ministries. The design gives special consideration to the Cathedral Center’s physical and cultural place within the city of Oakland. A landscaped public plaza, accessible from all directions, firmly links the center with the city’s commercial downtown and surrounding neighborhoods. Within the cathedral, the experience of light and space, rather than traditional iconography, instills a deep sense of sacredness…    

Christ the Light Cathedral Architect’s Presentation    

Christ the Light Cathedral Architect’s Presentation
Uploaded by ctlcathedral. – News videos hot off the press.
   

Cathedral of Christ the Light spokesman told us some bare bones facts about this significant and even unusual structure in its graphic conception and unusual look, so attractive and inviting. This is a well thought through construct of new Cathedral, inviting to its parishioners, visitors, and pilgrims. The Cathedral spokesman answered some questions.    

You are one of those I have questions for, including some clarification. For example, the Docent who was very good told us that the previous Bishop worked with the architect on the construction?    

The project began with Bishop John Cummins. He really got the whole process off the ground. Developed the very large committee and lay people. 2003 Bishop Vigneron was involved in 2003, January 1, 2009. He was there for the early period and groundbreaking.    

Is that so, and can you tell me briefly what he did?    

He was the boss. It was his project. The architect was hired by the Diocese, and so was the liturgical designer.    

Who was on the design committee? Was it a large group?    

There were a good handful on the design committee.    

On my visit to the spacious and even majestic Cathedral I stayed for Communion and noticed there is an Altar, of course, but no rail. We took Communion in a round, standing.    

Vatican II papers really opened up that form of receiving the Holy Eucharist. That was a Vatican II set of directives.    

How new is the Cathedral? It seems so almost breathtaking in its spacious interior, and with the huge figure of Christ created with natural light there is a supernatural sense to the interior. I found it so.    

Most recent Cathedral in the world. The Diocese was formed in 1962. It spun off from the San Francisco arch-Diocese. Estimate closer to 700,000 because of the Hispanic population. It’s a real mix of Vietnamese, Hispanic, and Anglo. Mass for Vietnamese every week; two Masses in Spanish, of course English.    

Sometimes various stories evolve around Cathedrals. They can be true or false. For example, there is a rumor that goes around that there is a cat buried in a tomb in the Episcopal Cathedral in San Francisco (Grace Cathedral). The Docent who showed my group around Christ the Light Cathedral said that the Finials on top of the building were the unfinished crown of the Christ the Light Cathedral and represent Mary Mother of God. Did I get the name right?    

Finials: It is not a liturgical design to represent a crown; that is not the case.    

Who was the Judge in the competition offered by the Roman Catholic Diocese to find an architect? Was it the San Francisco Chronicle Architectural Critic Alan Tempko?    

Alan Tempko headed up the selection committee, and the world’s architects were invited to compete.    

What of the naming of the Cathedral?    

The naming was one of the high points that came from a collaborative meeting process.  Former pastor of St. Francis de Sales Cathedral, Fr. Don Osuna, recalls inspirations for the name:    

“The name is a departure from the tradition of naming cathedrals after Mary the Mother of God or a patron saint. In dedicating its mother church to Christ the Light the Diocese of Oakland highlights the role that Christ must play in the new millennium.    

“Only Jesus, ‘light from light, true God from true God,’ can guide the Human Family into the uncertain challenges of future centuries. Jesus himself declared, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.    

“The name ‘Christ the Light’ also resonates with the image of God’s People so impressively described in Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church.  Its opening sentence reads, ‘Christ is the light of nations’ [Lumen Gentium].    

“In it the council fathers express their heart-felt desire that by proclaiming the Gospel to every creature the People of God ‘may being to all the light of Christ which shines out visibly from the Church.    

“Light is a universal phenomenon, celebrated by every country and cherished by every culture. The Cathedral will hopefully provide a resting place – like a candelabra – for those who seek a home and for those who may seek a beacon in the night.”    

When taking a Docent tour of Cathedral of Christ the Light ours told us that the large organs, which are lifted up on the walls of the Cathedral were, “…better than Grace Cathedral’s organ.”  In addition to comments, we were served with a look at various works of art in Cathedral of Christ the Light, including the Stations of the Cross, built to the walls so even a child can reach up and touch them. They are lovely, this writer reports, and modern. Sculptor Andre Bonnett was their maker, as well as other works of sculpture in the Cathedral. He worked with liturgical designer and director Brother William Woeger. There is an interview with both these talented and devoted men of faith later in this article.    

Our Docent told us that Mary is the Diocesan Patron Saint, and there is a sculpture of Mary with a bear (representing the State of California, we were told) on the floor of the Sanctuary. We could touch the Mary sculpture, and were told to notice her eyes. The eyes were especially noteworthy and unusual, one could say shaped like a fish—each eye.    

The sculpture of Christ on the Cross, another work of impact, simplicity and displayed in the sanctuary for all to see, was another greeting to the visitor. But above all was the huge Christ created in light on the high wall of the inside of the building. Just huge, and impressive as both image, work, and graphic. For it does appear as a graphic presentation and if memory serves correct was conceived as such.    

The interior in daytime is entirely illumined by natural light. This is a lovely use of light, and light of its own accord plays a role in the ethos of the Cathedral (Cathedral of Christ the Light).    

Three years in construction, the Roman Catholic Diocese staked 0 million in construction costs on the belief that people will come. Average Sunday Mass attendance in 2009 – 1400    

“It bespeaks a kind of missionary confidence,” said BishopVigneron. “With the attractiveness of the message of Christ, we can build up the congregation.” San Francisco Chronicle Religion Writer Matthai Kuruvila San Francisco Chronicle reported those words, Saturday, September 13, 2008 in the Bay Area morning paper.    

Mr. Kunuvila noted in his report this important matter:    

Instead of naming the cathedral after a particular saint, a designation that might seem to favor one ethnic group, the diocese chose the neutral “Christ the Light” – a reference to the first lines of the magna carta of the Second Vatican Council, which ended in 1965 and began the era of modern Catholic multiculturalism.
 
 
    

 
During the Docent tour, ours stayed with us the entire time of her walkthrough, answering questions well. I asked her if she had a question for the Architect, and she said Yes.
 
Her name, Esperanza Quenteros. It was during the tour the title for this article appeared to me, for it represented my initial reaction to the new building: Agog in Oakland: Visiting the “New” Catholic Cathedral Christ the Light . We were told there is a new Bishop in Oakland, California USA. A city that is so very diverse it is billed as a metropolis of unusual diversity with its many kinds of ethnic and national citizens. The Cathedral must accommodate them, and unify the Roman Catholic Community.
 
Just for the record, the current Bishop Salvatore Joseph Cordileone offers this about himself in his official biography:
On March 23, 2009 Pope Benedict XVI appointed Bishop Cordileone to be Fourth Bishop of Oakland. His Mass of Installation in the Diocese of Oakland was celebrated on May 5, 2009 at the Cathedral of Christ the Light .
 
Bishop Cordileone presently sits on the Committee for Canonical Affairs and Church Governance and the Ad Hoc Committee for Defense of Marriage of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB.) He also serves on the Religious Liberties Committee of the California Catholic Conference. 
 
Bishop Cordileone’s avocations include a life-long interest in jazz music. Even during his seminary studies in Rome he played his alto saxophone in a jazz quintet, and continues to follow the music.
What of the Theological purposes of the Cathedral. On its website, the Cathedral says of itself:
 It is the mother church and spiritual home of all the members of the Catholic Church in the Diocese of Oakland, which inspires our diverse community across Alameda and Contra Costa counties. The ministries at the Cathedral and its adjacent campus foster unity through worship, teaching and evangelization, and works of service – especially to the poor and those at the margins of society. The Cathedral functions as a “palace of the poor,” serving those in need by appealing to volunteers and donors who support cultural and community projects from a platform that will exist for centuries. Free health and legal clinics give life to this mission.
     

Bishop Allen Vigneron said: The Cathedral is to be a place for God and his people to meet. This only happens in Christ and thus the Cathedral is an icon of Christ, re-presenting the meaning of Christ. The Bishop continued with other remarks during the conception of the Cathedral and its building: Through the Cathedral, the idiom of our day can give voice to faith that is timeless.     

He described the Cathedral this way, and it is a kind of charge for Architect Craig Hartman, who worked so closely and well with Bishop Vigneron: Abundant with Catholic symbols and metaphors, woven into a context that has universal appeal, achieved through the shape of the Cathedral and the dramatic unfolding from the Story of Creation to Redemption through Christ…     

Asking for the creation of a place of being, a place of space and purpose, Bishop Vigneron added:    

The Cathedral then is our statement about how we, through whom Christ dwells in the world, dwell in Oakland and the East Bay.
  
A Catholic Catechism declares: …Christians construct buildings for divine worship. These visible churches are not simply gathering places but signify and make visible the Church living in this place, the dwelling of God with men reconciled and united in Christ. There is no mistake on the charge given Architect Craig Hartman, an Episcopalian who worships in an Episcopal Church in San Francisco: In this ‘house of God’ the truth and the harmony of the signs that make it up should allow Christ to be present and active in this place.
 
No doubt Architect Craig Hartman shared a similar vision as the Bishop, at least when it came to the concept of using light. He’d been working with this concept previous to his being chosen Architect to build the Cathedral of Christ the Light.
 
 
Skidmore, Owens and Merrill wrote this of their SOM architectural partner Craig Hartman:
 
The Oakland Diocese’s initial project prospectus called for light as the central focus of the design. In response to a question about which lighting principles he would employ on such a project, Hartman quoted architect Louis Kahn’s pronouncement: “We are born of light . . . we only know the world as it is evoked by light.” 
 
Hartman was invited to participate in the design competition in large part because of his imaginative use of light and reflection in the then-under-construction International Terminal at San Francisco International Airport. In the competition questionnaire, Hartman evoked the airport terminal project both to indicate his own “predisposition towards lightness and luminosity in architecture,” and as an example of “the recent advances in the technology of glass and concepts in structural engineering” that made the terminal a celebrated architectural work. Light, 
Hartman suggested, could indeed be the key “to create a contemporary design that was still evocative of the Church’s two millennium-old traditions.”
   

   
    In the SOM report, again Craig Hartman speaks of his work and design of the Oakland, California USA Cathedral:    

The Diocese asked the design team to think about the cathedral in terms of a three-century lifespan: “We felt that the 300-year standard applied not only to the cathedral’s structural integrity,” Hartman recalls, “but equally to the aesthetic that that building should be architecturally worthy of lasting at least until the 24th century.” According to structural engineering partner Bill Baker, it was equally important to use “an ‘of the moment’ approach to design and material because it was the most honest and sensible way to proceed.” This belief in the rightness of contemporary design led the team away from, for example, a neo-gothic tribute and towards a modern design instead.     

The sanctuary design references two interlocking spherical grids in the form of the “Vesica Pisces,” the conjoined circles that represent both an ancient symbol of congregation and the basic symbol of Christianity—the fish. The interlocking grids will support curved glass walls that are ceramically coated to infuse varying degrees of opacity. The results will be a glowing, variegated, indirectly lit interior space, vaulting up 12-stories to a glass oculus roof which is also in the intersecting circle motif.    

The oculus was designed to focus light on the central altar, provide a view of the sky above, and be a component in a unique, passive cooling system.     

Richard Rapaport, who wrote the article for Skidmore, Owens, and Merrill, put it right when he emphasized the use of structural integrity, and that it be worthy in its architectural sense to last until the 24th Century. Mr. Rapaport quotes Architect Hartman on the matter, and as well emphasizes another significant element in the design and symbolism of the Cathedral. That is the use of the form “Vesica Pisces,” an ancient symbol indicating meeting place for Christians.    

Skidmore, Owingss, and Merrill reports on its website:    

Bishop Vigneron ultimately believes that the SOM design succeeded both “as an expression of a created Cosmos,” and as a design that “meets all of the requirements for sheltering people to pray.” Beyond that, the Bishop sees something “beautifully worked about the way the design uses wood, concrete, and stone. Each of these materials,” he feels, ultimately “makes its own contribution to the display of light in very powerful yet subtle ways.”    

This writer can’t recall if our Docent mentioned any of the specific awards won by Craig Hartman, but his biography offers these paragraphs in summary with emphasis on some:    

Mr. Hartman’s work has been recognized with over 100 awards for design, which, in addition to 8 national AIA Honor Awards, includes two Gold LEED® Certifications and AIA awards for environmental sustainability at Treasure Island and the University of California, Merced. He also received a Federal Design Achievement Award in the 2000 Presidential Design Awards Program.     

In 2001, Hartman became the youngest recipient of the Maybeck Award, an award presented periodically by the California Chapter of the AIA to an individual in recognition of “lifetime achievement in architectural design.” During the dedication ceremony for The Cathedral of Christ the Light in September 2008, the Vatican’s Knighthood for Service to Society (St. Sylvester) was bestowed upon Hartman by Pope Benedictus XVI. He also received an Honorary Doctorate of the Arts from Ball State University during the May 2009 commencement ceremony.     

Minor City with the beautiful new Cathedral, Oakland had as Mayor Jerry Brown, well know three time Presidential aspirant and grass roots candidate who when the grass in the Springtime of his life was green was Governor of California USA. Then that young man, son of a father who was a popular Governor of California…Jerry Brown, the Catholic Seminary attendee, had the label Governor Moonbeam. At 72, this well-known politician again seeks the Governorship after being Mayor of Oakland, California. He was a centerpiece of fame for the minor California City, described in Wikipedia as a City that “…is a major West Coast port, located on San Francisco Bay, about 8 miles (13 km) east of San Francisco. Oakland is a major hub city for the Bay Area subregion collectively called the East Bay, and it is the county seat of Alameda County. Based on United States Census Bureau estimates for 2010, Oakland is the 41st-largest city in the USA with a population of 446,901.” The current Mayor of the City of Oakland is star of a YouTube that presents a montage of the many faceted laboring and sometimes troubled and crime plagued City of work and working class with its fine homes and tony people living in the Hills above the metropolis. With this thumbnail sketch of the lesser known California City with its marvelous new Cathedral, let us turn again to Cathedral of Christ the Light, spiritual home to Roman Catholics in the City’s region.    

Probably the both spare and moving artwork of the Cathedral adds to its beauty in a way of simple and impressive candor about faith and the place of worship and Christ in the Cathedral’s holy expressions of devotion. This writer talked with sculptor Andrew J Bonnette by phone when he was in his studio. We talked by phone more than once. On one call one of his children answered the studio phone and the youngster said his father had gone out. One recognized by this that the studio was probably in close proximity to his home.    

I live in Afton, in a country area. The home is a civil war era stone house built in 1851.    

I am 44. When I was about 15, my father would hire me to do odd jobs in the shop for him. Cast waxes, and make plaster molds and the like. As time went on the projects were  sometimes rather complex. Some of his mentors from the past I began to know quite well, as they often played a role in his work. Around 1986, he began to suffer from some  terminal physical problems. He died 1987. He was very well known all over the United States as an important sculptor of Liturgical and Sacred art, Gerald S Bonnette.    

I went to technical school for the field of hospital central service technician, (CSR). But I never went to art school. I learned the profession of sculpting,  mold making and how to use wax and clay from my father. He left me with a lot of  equipment and tools, and introduced me to oxy-acetylene torch welding. Most of the other skills I have picked up were self-taught, like Tig welding, stick welding, and metal casting, which were things that my father did not do himself.     

My skills with wood were also self-taught, and to this day I do most of the small wood related tasks myself.    

After the death of my father, the orders for the artwork continued to come to me. I expanded my skills as the need to do so evolved. There was never much time when I didn’t have a project to do.  At the Cathedral of Christ the light in Oakland California, all of the sculptures I am responsible for were cast by myself: The Stations of the Cross, the Madonna and Child with the black bear cub, the Tabernacle reliefs and the life-size crucifix are all designs of my creations. Some people have asked me what is the meaning of the bear cub. The bear cub symbolizes a state of strength, and wisdom of the coronation of Mary as the mother of God. That is all; this is my understanding, otherwise Oakland is a place of the black bear. There was also supposed to be a bronze oak tree near the Madonna. This tree was never fully completed in time, the Cathedral ultimately decided not to place the tree in the Cathedral. It remains in my shop, and someday it may be used for another reason.    

Text of email to the Bishop:    

Andrew:    

Fr. Minnihan forwarded to me a photo of the corpus you致e created for the sanctuary crucifix for our new Cathedral.  It is very beautiful.     

Thank you,    

Bp. Vigneron    

   

Do you like the work done on the Cathedral?    

It is fantastic, the most interesting Church and Cathedral I have ever seen or been in. When I visited Oakland, I was able to see how it was built and I love the physical shape of it. From the outside, it is very well illuminated from all directions. You can see the light coming from the inside from all directions. The light shines in from all directions during the day. It is so unique. I have so many good memories of going in there, everywhere you look there is something to see of history, art and the focus of the real light of Christ is everywhere.    

The reason the Cathedral chose me as one of the artists was mostly because of my personal accomplishments, however without the help of a good friend, Brother William Woeger, I do not think I would have been there.    

Do you say the Stations of the Cross?     

Yes, of course. Attending the processions of the Stations is very important thing for myself and my family. We usually attend mass at Saint Rita’s Catholic Church in Cottage Grove, but there are more than a few Catholic churches where I live. Since childhood, Saint Rita’s Church I have thought of as my church.    

My father was one of the main Liturgical Artists at Saint Rita’s, and there are a few pieces of his work there.    

Did you do much Church work before the Cathedral?     

There is a large 3 dimensional of Christ the King in Madison, Wisconsin. It is 7 1/2 feet from head to toe. It is a full size copy of a very important little bronze crucifix of my father’s design. It looks like a gigantic duplicate of the little crucifix. It is in the courtyard of the Archdiocese. I was paid a fair price for the work, however now that it is done, the cost of it is not important; the meaning of the statue is the only important thing.    

Did you work with the Bishop on the crucifix for the Cathedral of Christ the light?     

Yes, I met with Bishop Vigneron more than a few times. Myself, the design consultants and others met to have dinner in his house in Oakland, California. During our conversations, we arrived at the conclusion that Mary be very gentle looking and have a slightly Middle Eastern appearance because this is the region of the world they were from, and have certain features on the facial expressions of the Madonna statue. The final details of Mary’s eyes were my doing. The entire design was changed more than a few times. She is looking very lovingly at Jesus. I didn’t want her to look hard or difficult at all, and to show that Jesus is our gateway to God.    

Bishop Vigneron said, Oakland is populated by many different ethnicities and that relating to the masses and varieties of the ethnic generations is very important. Nobody really knows for sure exactly how Jesus or Mary really looked, and so you have to use some artistic license in deciding this.    

I spoke with the main architect a few times. We exchanged emails and talked about dimensions and where we would place the sculptures. I wanted people to touch the stations, and some people are not very tall, and so the height of where they are is important. We live in a three dimensional world and seeing is not all visual, and so a lot of our comprehension comes from being able to hold onto what is around us with our hands. It was important to me for the statues to be accessible to everyone.    

Text of email to the Bishop:    

Dear Bishop Vigneron    

The photos sent are of the feet on the large crucifix. They were changed because the size and shape of the feet prior were not acceptable. I am moving forward with the casting.     

Merry Christmas and Happy Newyear    

sincerely, Andrew Bonnette    

     

    

Dear Andrew:    

I’m sorry it has taken me so long to respond to this message.  I very much appreciate seeing the feet of the Crucifix.  What struck me first was the thought you put into it in having the nail holes show the result of the flesh being torn by the nails as the Lord’s body pressed downward.      

     

I am so very eager to see the whole.    

     

Know that I am most grateful that your talents are enriching our Cathedral.  I hope that you and your family have a blessed Christmas.    

     

Will you speak briefly of the method you used, and maybe even tell us something of the inspiration that led you to create the Crucifix Christ, and the Mary statue? Can you talk briefly of the meaning of the Mary statue to you, and what your feelings are about Mary?     

I wanted the sculptures at the Cathedral to look slightly Romanesque. There is no perfect art. I have always felt that if an artist is a perfectionist or fancies him or herself a professional artist, that is the opinion of the artist only. If you look at a Romanesque work that was made thousands of years ago, the artist was not thinking of making something perfect. The idea was captured in the act of doing the sculpting. I love the material bronze because it is such a usable material, and it has a beautiful color, the 2,000 year old castings are probably more interesting now than they were back then.    

It makes one want to know something about her and pray the rosary. The rosary is something I pray a lot. I think that was what gave me my inspiration. When I was sculpting Mary I prayed the rosary a lot. I didn’t want to make her look too glamorous. I don’t think that is the right thing to do for making a sculpture that is to be holy, to make it too glittery. I wanted it to be conservative—simple, yet beautiful.    

Of Andrew J Bonnette Mary by Rick White

 

Bronze is what it is, you can brush it or buff it and then let it patina. Usually you do not have to clean it up and it looks beautiful anyway.    

I do not think that that Mary is often given enough glorifications. She is not the savior of our human race of course, but she is the mother of our lord.    

I hope that the Madonna statue encourages more people to pray the rosary. The holy rosary is something I practice. I am sure it has given me a lot of my inspiration for the work    

Text of email to the Bishop:    

Dear Bishop Vigneron    

The photos sent are of the feet on the large crucifix. They were changed because the size and shape of the feet prior were not acceptable. I am moving forward with the casting.     

     

Merry Christmas and Happy Newyear    

sincerely, Andrew Bonnette    

     

     

     

Dear Andrew:    

Thank you, again, for your work on our Crucifix.  And thanks, too, for your good wishes for Christmas.  Mine to you and your family.    

Bp. Vigneron    

Dec. 20, 2007    

Doing this kind of work is a labor of love, and there are a lot of hazards. The original design concept probably takes a month or a few days, depending on how you look at it and the complexity. Taking your concept and turning it into a sculpture may take up to a few months for the original, and the final product could take up to a year.    

Welding is important. No matter how thoroughly the attention to detail is, you will always have to weld some part or parts of your work. You need to know how to join pieces of metal together. You need to know how to turn one scale into a larger scale.    

I make a lot of my own tools and machinery, and do invent new concepts in the process. For the most part, I am self-educated on most subjects, even electricity. In the house and shop, that really comes in handy. If someone were going to try to make a sizable and large sculpture, they would want to get familiarized with material and how to handle it. Come up with a good plan, write it down on paper, right down to the last detail, and perform each task as a separate job. That’s key to the whole thing.    

You do get tired. Over the years, my hands have become stronger, my abilities to notice details have increased and certain arm muscles are just stronger than usual. It’s hard work, and you want to get your design done while the idea is fresh in your mind. I like to think of myself as a do-it yourselfer, however I know that I am not an average person–I do not want to be, I couldn’t go down that road again.    

Text of email to the Bishop:    

Dear Bishop Vigneron,    

I wanted to let you know that I do plan on being at the dedication of the Cathedral in September, and thank you for the invitation, it will be faxed to Oakland. I hope that you have been well, and I look forward to seeing you again. The crucifix will be delivered to Omaha this Monday or Tuesday.     

Sincerely, Andrew Bonnette    

     

     

     

     

Dear Andrew    

I’m glad you are able to be present for the Dedication.  I have received some photos of the corpus for the sanctuary crucifix.  They are exquisitely beautiful.      

     

I have shared them with my priests and with my co-workers in the Chancery.  One of the secretaries seems near to tears as she spoke about the serenity you have portrayed in Christ’s face.      

     

God bless you for the gift of your talent in His service.    

If a reader wants to contact the sculptor, write, Andrew J Bonnette, 12487 40th St.    

Afton, MN 55001 USA. A pictorial brochure is available upon request    

    

An interview with liturgical and design director, Brother William J. Woeger, F.S.C.    

Director, Office for Divine Worship, 100 N. 62nd St., Omaha, NE  68132. 402.558.3100 ext. 3008    

402.558.3026 (fax).

Will you speak some to the subject of art and faith for readers? Perhaps they’ll gain a better understanding of the Cathedral space, and the liturgical role works of art play in a space that accommodates and nurtures faith?    

I’ve been a big fan of the art of borone in Switzerland. Basically, it’s late 19th century Viennese secessionists associated with the monastery of Barone. They were reacting to the romanticism of religious and also to the kind of artist himself as an object of cult and following. That the artist becomes bigger than the work of art itself. The true purpose of art is to serve religion. Ultimately the work was anonymous and the style heavily borrowed from Egyptian. They felt art was closely related to mathematics.    

Personally, I identify more with work that is iconic. It is theology and not just emotional. There should be some content. That was what I was looking for with some of the artists and so we have art that is evocative of the religious; we have art that is devotional, and art that speaks of a culture. It may not be the primary culture of the people who use the cathedral. For example, the art in the holy family chapel is Spanish colonial, and the average age of the paintings is 200 years old. The school of Cusco. The Cusco paintings are anonymous and come out of the school. The two sculptures that are in there are Cusco but they are contemporary. There San Jose Joseph with the child, and Conino Nino. (The Family Chapel.) The immaculate (Mary).    

How did you get involved with the Cathedral project, and when?    

For about thirty years I’ve been travelling around the country as a liturgical designer and I interviewed with the Diocese and was hired. The Bishop and members of his staff and committee. That was Archbishop Vignonor, who is now in Detroit. For about the last forty years Catholic Churches have not been built with Communion Rails because people receive standing. Other than the altar rail, the layout of the Church is really not radical at all, even though the architecture is very, very contemporary. I don’t think anybody, even an architect or a designer than the client is, and nine times out of ten if you’ve got a good client you’ve got a good result. Archbishop Vignoron is one of the best clients I’ve ever worked for. He approached the project in a manner that was open minded and inclusive. When he came in to the Cathedral, the basic concept of the Cathedral was made. He called the project techno – that he appreciated the way a building like that is built. There is never too much. He would affectionately refer to the building as techno, for it had an abundance of technical design. He very much appreciated the whole metaphor of light.    

At your age, when working on the Cathedral, what were the expectations for the liturgical and theological designs?    

I think all of us knew we were doing something special. This was not just “another church.” We knew there were a lot of people looking to see what would happen. We thought we were onto something very positive, and moved forward with it. Relationships were established. I have friends I made I will have all my life.    

The lead architect was very open to the project and input of the people around him. This was not a one man show. He was very responsive to the gifts that were brought to the table.    

Whose idea was it to have the smaller “chapels” throughout the Cathedral?    

Chapel of the Suffering Christ, Courtesy of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP
 

Those spaces were there and it was not clear how they were going to function. My job was to work with the committee and the Bishop to reflect on the building and build a theology for it. We came up with the idea of the Chapel of the Suffering Christ because people may be in pain. The family is supposed to remind people that the principle educator of children is parents. Chapel of the saints will be filled with icons. No one has been commissioned to fill the frames. They are quite ornate. The all seasons chapel was created where the average parishioner could make a seasonal statement or where a more spontaneous expression could be made, like a shrine. That changes all the time.    

It was and continues to be a great privilege to be involved in this project. It is one I will continue to stay close to. I came away from the project feeling like I had received a gift to be involved with it.    

The Pacific Rim it is said faces Asia, and the Rocky Mountains divide east from west.  So we’ve said. The cities of the Pacific Rim include those not only in the United States but within this entire global definition. That a Cathedral, in this case a new Roman Catholic Cathedral is to last three centuries, into the 24th Century, takes building skills, imagination, and a lot of work that promises quality. As an addition, so small in the geologic sense, and even small when compared to the proportion of population of the Pacific Rim, this Cathedral of Christ the Light is an addition to the Western United States and especially the City of Oakland and all of California.    

Hyperbole? Of course! What else is a new Cathedral, but a celebration? Regardless of denomination, a house of God, a light of and for believers in Christ, need not and should not be ignored. This writer hopes we have celebrated the addition of a new Cathedral, and expressed the modern and unusual space of light and graphic presentation of the “supernatural” huge Christ as a place of worship for Roman Catholics.    

The second Cathedral for Architect Craig Hartman is going to be built:    

In the Roman Catholic tradition, a Cathedral houses the cathedra – the teaching seat – of the bishop. The Cathedral becomes the focal point of important liturgical events within the diocese and hosts celebrations and other activities closely linked to the diocesan community and its faith. An important distinction for the new Cathedral is the long-range plan to make the complex serve ecumenical as well as parochial needs; and to become an important spiritual and cultural center for all of Orange County.     

The search for an architect capable of translating the many ethnic and cultural facets represented in the Diocese of Orange, while acknowledging the historical architectural and worship traditions of Roman Catholicism, culminated with the selection of San Francisco-based Hartman, the Design Partner in SOM’s San Francisco office…    

Educated at Ball State University and the Architectural Association in London, where he studied under Cedric Price, Hartman was recruited from school by Walter Netsch, FAIA, to join the Chicago office of SOM in 1973. He moved to SOM’s Houston office in 1982, becoming a Design Partner in 1985 at the age of 35. In 1987, he became the Design Partner of SOM’s Washington, D.C. office and ultimately joined SOM’s San Francisco office in 1990 as the Design Partner in charge of Architecture for the West Coast practice.    

[One Press Statement headline reads:] Christ Our Savior Cathedral Design will Feature Innovative Engineering and Extensive Community Service Facilities when Completed.    

If one is in Oakland, visiting San Francisco, hear the organs of Cathedral of Christ the Light. Currently, on every 2nd and 4th Wednesday of the month, a brief demonstration of the Conroy Memorial Organ will take place at 1PM as part of the docent-led tour. Join the Cathedral’s organist, Rudy de Vos, as he briefly talks about this magnificent instrument and demonstrates some of the different sounds from its 5,298 pipes.    

The good work of the Cathedral Center is now highlighted in a new brochure, in both English and Spanish. (updated 8-27-2010)    

ADDENDUM II    

     

Unanswered questions regarding the Cathedral of the Architectural firm    

At the time of this posting the writer continues to work on these questions for Skidmore, Owens and Merrill.    

Food for thought and reflection    

(1) In the realm of public work meeting the private, what particulars of architecture and community do you see as most significant and immediately recognizable as necessary? Can you think of a Church or Cathedral that speaks to this ethos and aesthetic in important ways? Is there a particular project with which you are familiar, or worked on, that you could mention in this regard?    

(2) What is the architectural role of the kind of building that is religious or faith oriented in the community, to your mind? What of your own place of worship? Does it or does it not fit your criteria for a good place of its kind within its city or community? In what way?    

 (3) Will you speak for a moment for attribution, if only briefly, about the Western United States and its sense of architectural design in cities as opposed to those sensibilities in the Eastern United States? Can you think of a Cathedral or Church that is memorable and a statement for its own region or area? Even a building that strikes your mind when considering this kind of difficult and probably unfair, and too broad of a question? But there the question is, and I am sure readers will be interested to get a feel for American architecture in this regard.    

The area that occurs to me is in part a statement of design by architect Craig Harman made in his video of the design process for the Cathedral. His words were to the effect that the building was placed so as to be created between the urban Oakland and the natural setting of Lake Merritt. I consider this as a boundary, as outlined in a book     

I reviewed Esther de Waal’s work (link to book review is here: http://www.examiner.com/x-10965-SF-Religion-in-the-News-Examiner~y2009m8d22-Book-Review-Entering-into-a-life-in-the-Spirit ). (A link to where the video is found is here: http://www.ctlcathedral.org/resources/video_display2.shtml )     

Further, a Cathedral is a symbol, and many religious requirements are met in its design. For instance, the direction the altar faces is a traditional matter of religious intent and necessity. It requires some special knowledge within its own sense of value and purpose. Just in that it becomes particularly special, even as religious statement. May we agree on that?    

A reiteration in rephrasing of the questions for reflection:    

In what way is the Cathedral situated within its public and private environs so that it creates a series of boundaries and statements, if that is even so?   
Where or what is the statement about the western parts of the United States in the design of this building, especially as a public place for worship for the community? I understand you are familiar with regional and public design and reason for same in architecture, hence the question.   
The Bishop who worked on the building in its building stage noted that he thought the design “techno.” It does seem so modern and “techno.” Though you cannot speak for him, perhaps you know what he means for on your website you have a genre of buildings that are modern in their particularity. If you understand what I mean, please comment on this form of Skidmore, Owen Merrill work.   
The graphics on the building are striking. Who was in charge, and will you say something of the design team’s vision?
  

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