Died On This Date (October 14, 1977) Bing Crosby / Iconic Pop Singer
themusicsover Harry “Bing” Crosby
May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977
Bing Crosby was one of America’s most beloved entertainers, with a career that spanned over fifty years. As a pop singer, Crosby was a direct influence on the likes of Frank Sinatra, Perry Como and Dean Martin. He was so beloved, that in 1948 it was estimated that his songs made up more than half of the 80,000 weekly hours devoted to music on radio. He was also instrumental in the growth of the music industry itself. In the late ’40s, he heavily invested in Ampex, helping it develop the first commercial reel-to-reel recorder in North America. As for his music, he is credited with over 1700 recordings, almost 400 of which being top 30 hits, with over 40 making it to #1. It is rightfully assumed that if sales data was collected more accurately during the early part of his career, those numbers would be much higher. While vacatoining in Spain, Bing Crosby died of a massive heart attack while playing golf. He was 74 years old.
What You Should Own
Edith Piaf was a French singer who rose from poverty to become one of her country’s most popular performers of the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s. Because of her petite frame, she was called “The Little Sparrow” around the world, and has since become a cultural icon thanks to numerous recordings, biographies and at least one major motion picture about her life. After conquering France, Piaf began touring the rest of Europe and the United States in the years following World War Two. While in the U.S., she graced the stage of Carnegie Hall twice and The 
Sonny Bradshaw was a beloved Jamaican musician whose career spanned a remarkable six decades. He was as multi-faceted as he was renowned. Besides playing the trumpet, piano, trombone, saxophone, and clarinet, Bradshaw was a composer, arranger, producer, journalist and promoter. During the ’50s, he formed the Sonny Bradshaw 7, which turned out to be the first significant musical home of many great Jamaican musicians to come. In the early ’60s, Bradshaw began working in radio, with his Teenage Dance Party, becoming the first place many Jamaicans heard the early songs of future legends. On October 10, 2009, Sonny Bradshaw died after having been ill following a stroke a few months earlier. He was 83 years old.