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Start giftingBing and Billie and Frank and Ella and Judy and Barbra
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Learn moreCrosby, Holiday, Sinatra, Fitzgerald, Garland, and Streisand were the major interpreters of the American songbook, and this is the interlocking story of their lives and careers.
Here is the epic tale of how these artists dominated American popular music over a fifty-year period, a roller coaster ride that gains momentum through the 1930s and '40s, reaches a crest of magical creativity in the 1950s and early '60s, and then crashes down by the early 1970s, a half century when the great American songbook dominated the airwaves and the fight for racial equality came to the forefront.
Ella was beloved in her time, and she is still beloved. Frank is still the king of the songbook, but Bing's legacy is just as vital once you start listening to his unprecedented 1930s output. The best songs from Judy's greatest triumph, her 1963–64 TV series, are shared endlessly online. The legend of Billie grows by the year, and the basis of this should be appreciation and wonder for her own great artistry in the 1930s. Barbra is a living legend and still a commercial force to be reckoned with, the last exemplar of the songbook and its glories. All six of these singers reach out to us and show us new ways of expression and new ways to dream. Their song is largely ended but the melody lingers on.
Dan Callahan is the author of Barbara Stanwyck: The Miracle Woman, Vanessa: The Life of Vanessa Redgrave, The Art of American Screen Acting, 1912-1960, and The Art of American Screen Acting, 1960 to Today. He has written about film for Sight & Sound, Film Comment, Nylon, the Village Voice, and many other publications.
Paul Bellantoni, a classically trained actor, is a former opera singer in the US and Europe. He voiced all the fight efforts for Wenwu in the Marvel movie Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and made his animated feature debut in the Annie Award-nominated Ruben Brandt, Collector. Thrilled to be narrating audiobooks, he excels in character voices, accents, and captivating passionate storytelling. He was the singing voice for the Cowardly Lion of Oz ornament from Hallmark, and is the voice for Uatu, The Watcher in the Marvel Super War videogame. He has voiced lead characters in the English versions of several Netflix and Hulu series, and has appeared in many videogame franchises, including Dungeons & Dragons, League of Legends, Hearthstone, Black Desert, Genshin Impact, and Shenmue. He sang lead roles in opera companies throughout the US and Europe for over a decade, appears on the cast recording of "The Ballad of Baby Doe" with Central City Opera, as well as a solo CD of arias "Heroes & Villains" with the Moravian Symphony. He made his solo recital debut at Carnegie Hall as a winner of the Koussevitzky Prize.