Kenmore Ave. Since the late s, a crooner has been understood as someone, usually a man, who sings a love song into a microphone, most popularly in recordings or over the radio. There have been various meanings of crooning, from its first development in the United States, derived from Scottish and Irish usage, as a term to describe a soft, low, intimate kind of singing. It became most associated with the mammy figure of 19th century minstrelsy, singing softly to her white charges or her own children.
Generally, it was associated with maternal figures and mother and child relationships until the turn of the century, when it was culturally detached from mothering and minstrelsy and instead used as a term for romantic courtship behavior between men and women. With broadcasting, this intimate sound of courtship began to be communicated from one singer to millions of people, and thus the crooner was born. Why were crooners so important to pop music and American culture in the s and s?
Crooning singing is the beginning of pop music. Before the advent of crooners, pop was considered any type of performance that was cheaply priced, commercial and low culture. The backlash against his popularity in the early s set the blueprint for every pop idol to follow. They did have many qualities perceived as feminine in the s, although these were not considered effeminate at that time. For example, they dressed fashionably, were clean-cut, often wore makeup, and ironed, curled or pomaded their hair.
They loved women and sang intimate love songs primarily for and directly to them. Vocally, most were tenors who sang using their head voices rather than chest voices. Their soft, smooth, breathy, conversational style, their sensitivity and vulnerability, and the fact that they frequently positioned themselves lyrically as passively longing for their dream girl was read as feminine-coded to varying degrees. The crooners who were stigmatized were specifically white male stars. In part, this is because men of color were segregated out of star positions in national broadcasting and recording they could not be pop stars.
The big band sound would alternate between hot, jazz-inflected instrumentals and pop ballads which featured a lead singer--males or female--utilizing a crooning style. By the time of the genre's heydey in the s, crooners had developed a cool, urbane delivery singing was rarely overstated.
The top male vocalists, in particular, were promoted as romantic vehicles to the listening audience, a device which was later copied by the teen idols of the rock 'n' roll era. These singers relied heavily on Tin Pan Alley songwriters for material. Most of the best known ballads composed in the twentieth century--e.
As country, rhythm and blues, and rock 'n' roll became commercially established in the s, crooners turned increasingly to the practice of "covering" recordings originating from these genres. This content is only available as PDF. You do not currently have access to this chapter. Sign in Don't already have an account? Client Account. You could not be signed in. Sign In Forgot password? Don't have an account? Sign in via your Institution Sign In.
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