Bing Crosby

Bing Crosby was born in Tacoma in 1903, and long before rock and roll had a name he'd already changed how a singer could sound on record. New recording technology let him sing soft and close, like he was sitting across the table from you, and that intimate style taught a whole line of singers, from Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin to Elvis Presley, John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

He was a movie star too, and a huge one. He won the Best Actor Oscar for Going My Way, made more than 70 films, and cut more than 1,600 songs. He also changed how records get made: after seeing a German reel-to-reel tape machine demonstrated, he put $50,000 into Ampex to build copies, and no performer before him had taped his radio shows in advance or mastered his records on magnetic tape. The editing and retakes he brought over from the movies became the industry standard, and every rock band that ever fixed a flubbed chorus is in his debt.

For most listeners, though, he's the voice of "White Christmas", which he sang in Irving Berlin's musical film Holiday Inn and again in the film that took the song's name. The World of Christmas, from 1992, is one of the holiday collections that bring that warm, unhurried voice back every December. He died in 1977, but every year the song finds him again.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.