Table of Contents

Introduction
1 Frank Sinatra: ‘What’s New?’ (1968)
2 Scott Walker: ‘It’s Raining Today’ (1969)
3 Barry White: ‘Bring Back My Yesterday’ (1973)
4 David Bowie: ‘Word on a Wing’ (1976)
5 Bryan Ferry: ‘When She Walks (in the Room)’ (1978)
6 Tom Waits: ‘Ruby’s Arms’ (1980)
7 Grace Jones: ‘Unlimited Capacity for Love’ (1982)
8 Ian McCulloch: ‘Ocean Rain’ (1984)
9 Nick Cave: ‘Far from Me’ (1997)
10 Nas: ‘Bye Baby’ (2012)
Conclusion
References
Select Bibliography
Select Discography
Acknowledgements
Photo Acknowledgements
Index

About the Author

Alex Coles is professor of arts and humanities at the University of Huddersfield. He is the author of several books, including Tainted Love: Twisted Romantic Ballads (2023).

Reviews

"[The Reverb series] swerves the more predictable biographies and traditional histories of popular music. Instead, books published under Reverb focus on situating popular music in much broader historical and deeper cultural contexts. Alex Coles skillfully achieves this with his imaginative, radical history of the crooner . . . With each chapter saturated with references, the frequent illustrations do well to bring a sense of humanity to the crooner's lived life . . . Crooner is undoubtedly a book written with passion for crooning, but Coles balances that passion with measured insights and a carefully crafted narrative. More than mindful listening at a cool distance, Coles offers a closeness that is personal, perhaps quasi-fanatical. With little to no abstract metanalysis that would explain crooning away into a confusing fog of theory, Coles's post-critical writing delivers a rich, vibrant genealogy of crooning. This accessible study will appeal to casual fans of music, and not exclusively fans of crooning, while also holding court in academic circles for those looking to follow Coles's idiosyncratic tracing of the crooked timber of crooning."-- "Popular Music and Society Journal"

"The crooner is one of the most enduring personas in popular music . . . As the book's subtitle suggests, Coles has structured his exploration by selecting ten vocalists from more than 50 years of recorded music. He investigates each one's contribution to crooning by focusing on just one of their songs. This structure allows for a focused examination of the individual artist and song and a broader analysis of work by other musicians that influenced the recording . . . Coles skilfully strikes the right balance between these two components, employing extensive research to create informative and provocative discussions . . . It's particularly commendable that the songs Coles has selected are not the best-known tracks by each artist - far from it, in several cases. Some choices push the boundaries of what might be considered crooning . . . the chapters on each of the ten artists collectively give the reader a better appreciation of an often satirized or misunderstood musical style. In that way, Crooner contributes to the literature on popular music."-- "Pop Matters"