Crooner

A crooner is a singer that performs with a smooth, intimate style that originated in the 1920s. The style was made possible by better microphones that picked up quieter sounds and a wider range of frequencies, allowing the singer to access a more dynamic range. This suggestion of intimacy was supposedly wildly attractive to women, especially younger ones such as teenage girls, known at the time as "bobby soxers". The crooning style developed out of singers who performed with big bands, and reached its height in the 1940s to late 1960s.

Crooning is epitomised by jazz vocalists like Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, although Sinatra once said that he did not consider himself or Crosby to be "crooners".^[1] Other performers, such as Russ Columbo, also rejected the term.^[2]