The authors bring to light the beginning of a style of singing made possible by the introduction of radio and the electric microphone. Separate from the shouting style of singing required by the acoustic horn phonograph and theatres with no amplification, the microphone allowed a more intimate soft style of singing. The book highlights the better known performers Bing Crosby, Rudy Vallee as well as informs on the forgotten performers Art Gillham, Jack Smith, Little Jack Little and others instrumental in developing the intimate crooning style.

Crooning was a distinctive music performance style that came into prominence during the Big Band era of the 1930s and 40s. Successful crooners like Rudy Vallee and Frank Sinatra became icons of the "bobbysox" generation of teenagers. Established crooners like Bing Crosby and Tony Bennett had decades long careers that including radio, movies, and television. In The Rise Of The Crooner, music historian Michael R. Pitts and Drank W. Hoffmann (Professor of Library Science, Sam Houston State University) are ably assisted by Dick Carty and Jim Bedoian to present an articulate, scholarly, informative, and engaging historical treatise surveying the trends, fads, events, and personalities that created this popular form of American music and its lasting impact on popular American culture. The "reader friendly", 312 paged text is enhanced with up-to-date biographies, bibliographies, and discographies making The Rise Of The Crooners an enthusiastically recommended addition to any personal, professional, academic, or community library American music history collection.

If Oscar Wilde had knocked off a couple of chart-busting smasheroonis then this would be his account of the repercussions from sudden fame and the resulting crash at the bottom of the downward slope. Mr.Whitcomb has happily combined an hilarious account of his own unexpected 15 minutes along with a witty and erudite look at the pop star world of the British Invasion,C.1965.