John Crosby Quotes

There's a great body of people who flower at night, who feel night is their time. Night is the time people truly become individuals, because all the familiar things are dark and done, all the restrictions on freedom are removed. Many artists work at night - it is particularly conducive to creative work.

Everyone knows the experience of encountering other persons only under the aspect of how they intersect with our projects, and of noticing them only insofar as we have to notice them in order to interact with them as we pursue our goals. But from time to time we realize more keenly that the other with whom we are dealing is a person, and then we feel the irreverence and the arrogance of our attitude. We become aware of a certain violence with which we have been treating other persons; we realize that we have to draw back and grant them a space in which to be themselves as persons, and that we have to cease seeing them exclusively in relation to our projects.

Crosby’s name was mentioned, and Peyton got on the telephone. He tracked Crosby to the set of The Bells of St. Mary’s, where Crosby was working on the role, ironically, of a priest. On the spur of the moment, Crosby agreed to do the show. Francis Cardinal Spellman also appeared, and the Mother’s Day broadcast was such a success that Peyton pushed ahead with plans for a regular series. Mutual donated the time, under four conditions: that the show be of top quality; that it be strictly nonsectarian; that a major film star be involved each week; and that Peyton pay production costs himself. He met Loretta Young, who advised him how to approach the stars and became the “first lady” of Family Theater

Meditation Take the world, but give me Jesus, Sweetest comfort of my soul; With my Savior watching o’er me, I can sing though billows roll. Take the world, but give me Jesus, Let me view his constant smile; Then throughout my pilgrim journey Light will cheer me all the while. Take the world, but give me Jesus, All its joys are but a name; But his love abideth ever, Through eternal years the same. Take the world, but give me Jesus. In his cross my trust shall be, Till, with clearer, brighter vision, Face to face my Lord I see. Refrain Oh, the height and depth of mercy! Oh, the length and breadth of love! Oh, the fullness of redemption, Pledge of endless life above! “TAKE THE WORLD, BUT GIVE ME JESUS,” FANNY CROSBY (1879)

eight thousand Republicans crammed into Crosby’s Opera House for a veritable coronation of Ulysses S. Grant. To play on wartime memories, General John “Black Jack” Logan was designated to place his name in nomination. His speech was followed by a well-staged extravaganza: hats and handkerchiefs fluttered, rounds of applause rippled across the house, and a pigeon, dyed red, white, and blue, flapped through the cavernous space. As a huge ovation for his son gathered strength, Jesse Grant stood before the speaker’s platform in “mute astonishment,” said a reporter.8 Then a curtain rose to reveal huge images drawn by Thomas Nast of the Goddess of Liberty, juxtaposed with Grant. To no one’s surprise, Grant won by acclamation on the first ballot.

He was the first of the top stars of vaudeville and burlesque to also reach the top in radio. Almost a full year ahead of Al Jolson, Ed Wynn, Fred Allen, and Jack Benny, three years ahead of Bing Crosby, seven years before Bob Hope: Eddie Cantor trailed only Rudy Vallee, but Vallee was cut from a different log.

Fifty Best Rock Documentaries Chicago Blues (1972) B. B. King: The Life of Riley (2014) Devil at the Crossroads (2019) BBC: Dancing in the Street: Whole Lotta Shakin’ (1996) BBC: Story of American Folk Music (2014) The Weavers: Wasn’t That a Time! (1982) PBS: The March on Washington (2013) BBC: Beach Boys: Wouldn’t It Be Nice (2005) The Wrecking Crew (2008) What’s Happening! The Beatles in the U.S.A. (1964) BBC: Blues Britannia (2009) Rolling Stones: Charlie Is My Darling—Ireland 1965 (2012) Bob Dylan: Dont Look Back (1967) BBC: The Motown Invasion (2011) Rolling Stones: Sympathy for the Devil (1968) BBC: Summer of Love: How Hippies Changed the World (2017) Gimme Shelter (1970) Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World (2017) Cocksucker Blues (1972) John Lennon & the Plastic Ono Band: Sweet Toronto (1971) John and Yoko: Above Us Only Sky (2018) Gimme Some Truth: The Making of John Lennon’s “Imagine” Album (2000) Echo in the Canyon (2018) BBC: Prog Rock Britannia (2009) BBC: Hotel California: LA from the Byrds to the Eagles (2007) The Allman Brothers Band: After the Crash (2016) BBC: Sweet Home Alabama: The Southern Rock Saga (2012) Ain’t in It for My Health: A Film About Levon Helm (2010) BBC: Kings of Glam (2006) Super Duper Alice Cooper (2014) New York Dolls: All Dolled Up (2005) End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones (2004) Fillmore: The Last Days (1972) Gimme Danger: The Stooges (2016) George Clinton: The Mothership Connection (1998) Fleetwood Mac: Rumours (1997) The Who: The Kids Are Alright (1979) The Clash: New Year’s Day ’77 (2015) The Decline of Western Civilization (1981) U2: Rattle and Hum (1988) Neil Young: Year of the Horse (1997) Ginger Baker: Beware of Mr. Baker (2012) AC/DC: Dirty Deeds (2012) Grateful Dead: Long, Strange Trip (2017) No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (2005) Hip-Hop Evolution (2016) Joan Jett: Bad Reputation (2018) David Crosby: Remember My Name (2019) Zappa (2020) Summer of Soul (2021)

Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen and a push in the right direction.” John Crosby

BANKS ENJOYED THE DRIVE TO LEEDS. THE WEATHER WAS fine, the traffic not too horrendous, and the iPod shuffle treated him to a truly random medley of David Crosby, John Cale, Pentangle and Grinderman, among others. A mild beer hangover from Kev Templeton’s wake hammered away insistently in the back of his head, muffled by extra-strength aspirin and plenty of water. At least he had had the sense to avoid spirits and sleep on Hatchley’s sofa, though the children had awoken him at some ungodly hour of the morning. Annie had gone home early and said she would be coming back to Eastvale sometime to talk to Elizabeth Wallace. Banks and Annie planned to meet for a late lunch and compare notes. Julia

MORE FROM GOD’S WORD Worship the Lord your God and … serve Him only. Matthew 4:10 HCSB A person should consider us in this way: as servants of Christ and managers of God’s mysteries. In this regard, it is expected of managers that each one be found faithful. 1 Corinthians 4:1-2 HCSB If they serve Him obediently, they will end their days in prosperity and their years in happiness. Job 36:11 HCSB We must do the works of Him who sent Me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. John 9:4 HCSB Serve the Lord with gladness. Psalm 100:2 HCSB The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. Matthew 23:11-12 NIV Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Romans 12:11 NIV SHADES OF GRACE Kindness in this world will do much to help others, not only to come into the light, but also to grow in grace day by day. Fanny Crosby A PRAYER FOR TODAY Dear Lord, in weak moments, I seek to build myself up by placing myself ahead of others. But Your commandment, Father, is that I become a humble servant to those who need my encouragement, my help, and my love. Create in me a servant’s heart. And, let me be a woman who follows in the footsteps of Your Son Jesus who taught us by example that to be great in Your eyes, Lord, is to serve others humbly, faithfully, and lovingly. Amen

The turntable drops down and the record swings into its place in the pile. The purple light goes off. The nickel, which has caused all this mechanism to work, has caused Crosby to sing and an orchestra to play—this nickel drops from between the contact points into the box where the profits go. This nickel, unlike most money, has actually done a job of work, has been physically responsible for a reaction.

Jack Kidd, John Bennett, and Tom Jeffrey showed us how to win a war. Bucky Cleven and Bucky Egan gave the 100th its personality. Bob Rosenthal helped us want to win the war.

John Coltrane, still playing at top intensity and volume, totally into it. He blew me out so bad I slid down the wall. The guy was still playing his solo. He hadn’t stopped. I don’t think he ever knew that I was in that room. He never saw that little ofay kid in the corner, you know, but he totally turned my mind to Jell-O at that point and that was my John Coltrane experience.

For anyone with busfare and a harmonica, The Original Amateur Hour was a grab at the brass ring. Some came without busfare, hitching rides across the country. Poor blacks came up from the South; cowboys from the West. Freak acts came from everywhere. Many had sung in choirs back home. Some had played tank towns in the corn belt, with three-piece combos held together by long strings of one-night stands. They were supposed to be “simon pures,” strictly amateur, but who was to know? The common denominator was desperation. The Depression hung over the nation like a shroud. If a man with a smooth baritone singing voice was told by enough friends that he sounded better than Bing Crosby, he began to believe it. Major Bowes gave him a chance to prove it.

Donald Shepherd and Robert F. Slatzer wrote a tough biography, The Hollow Man, which depicted Crosby as a cold, calculating dictator who abandoned his first family to start a new one, who turned his back on his wife Dixie Lee as she lay dying of cancer in 1952, who left a cruel will for his second wife, Kathryn, manipulating his money from the grave. The book was condemned by Crosby’s most ardent fans as a hatchet job, but the charges lingered. Perhaps the most revealing piece on Crosby was his interview with Barbara Walters, given a second airing on television after his death. At one point Walters asks what Crosby would do if his daughter began openly living with a man against Crosby’s wishes. “Why, I’d never speak to her again,” Crosby says, and the way he says it makes a viewer believe there wasn’t much compromise in his nature. He did things his way, and that’s how people around him did them too.

This was not an isolated incident. Crosby in private was easygoing but distant. He was easy to write for, seldom fussing or making major changes in the script. But if he got his back up, there was little room in his makeup for compromise. “He has no friends,” his brother Bob told jazz historian Leonard Feather years later. He was seen by some as cold, even ruthless in business matters. He could pass through town without bothering to call a brother he hadn’t seen in two years. He had “built a sort of cellophane bag around himself,” Bob Crosby told Feather. “He lives in this bag and opens it now and then for a little while. You can only get inside for a minute, then he shuts you out.

On Feb. 5, 1945, an all-star cast spoofed America’s most popular comic strip in an hour-long play, Dick Tracy in B-Flat; or, For Goodness Sake, Isn’t He Ever Going to Marry Tess Trueheart? The stars were Bing Crosby as Dick Tracy; Dinah Shore as Tess Trueheart; Harry Von Zell as Old Judge Hooper; Jerry Colonna as the Chief of Police; Bob Hope as Flat Top; Frank Morgan as Vitamin Flintheart; Jimmy Durante as the Mole; Judy Garland as Snowflake; the Andrews Sisters as the Summer Sisters; Frank Sinatra as Shaky; and Cass Daley as Gravel Gertie.

Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push in the right direction.

Millions for Defense was one of the first big Treasury Department shows of the war. It predated Pearl Harbor by six months and sounded a warning call for hard times ahead. Fred Allen was opening-night master of ceremonies. Typical of these war shows, it had all of Hollywood and New York at its beck and call, all free talent. Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and Dorothy Lamour headlined the July 9 show. Bette Davis, Lily Pons, Abbott and Costello, Tyrone Power, and Claudette Colbert were on subsequent broadcasts. The show was quite popular in the waning months of summer, and when Fred Allen reclaimed his slot in the fall, Millions simply shifted networks and became The Treasury Hour.

Miss Brooks had a devilish streak of witty sarcasm. Her dialogue was wonderfully “feline,” as critic John Crosby would note: her snappy comeback to the stuffy assertions of her boss, principal Osgood Conklin, bristled with intelligence and fun. She complained about her low pay (and how teachers identified with that!), got her boss in no end of trouble, pursued biologist Philip Boynton to no avail, and became the favorite schoolmarm of her pupils, and of all America. The role was perfect for Eve Arden, a refugee of B movies and the musical comedy stage. Arden was born Eunice Quedens in Mill Valley, Calif., in 1912. In her youth she joined a theatrical touring group and traveled the country in an old Ford. She was cast in Ziegfeld’s Follies revivals in 1934 and 1936, working in the latter with Fanny Brice. She became Eve Arden when producer Lee Shubert suggested a name change: she was reading a novel with a heroine named Eve, and combined this name with the Elizabeth Arden cosmetics on her dressing room table.

Well, Chum, the poor man’s Bing Crosby is still making with the throat here in Chi. but if the present good fortune keeps up I ought to be getting the New York break pretty soon.