“Funny, outrageous, cynical, and spellbinding.”—People magazine. In this first-ever digital edition of John Gregory Dunne’s acclaimed collection Crooning, readers find evidence from the get-go confirming the writer’s reputation as one of the most clear-seeing, incisive observers of the American cultural and political scene. In sixteen sharp, distinctively voiced essays, Dunne profiles a blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter who three decades later passed himself off as a young Chicano novelist; considers the Kennedy men and conservative William F. Buckley, takes us inside California’s labyrinthine water politics and criminal justice system, details the workings of the Los Angeles county morgue, and is on the ground observing in Jerusalem just weeks before the intifada enveloped the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1987. Here, too, are superbly entertaining accounts of the Hollywood star system and studio machine, Dunne drawing on two decades of experience as an L.A.-based journalist and fiction-writer with regular forays into screenwriting. He is candid and insightful about the business of writing and life of the dedicated writer as well. In “Laying Pipe,” Dunne chronicles the five-year experience of writing his epic novel The Red White and Blue. And in “Critical,” he focuses on book reviews and reviewers from his perspective as an author who, along with manifold strong notices, also received the occasional critical knock. He names names, and takes the opportunity to fire back at one of his critics. Early in Crooning, Dunne tells us that when he tires of the writing grind, he fantasizes about being a Johnny Mercer-like crooner, then reveals a moment later that he is tone deaf. The title, then, is playful - and in more than one way. Instead of writing sweet narrative melodies, Dunne built his career through work that exposes, challenges, thrums with opinion, and bristles with spiky, knowing humor. Download Crooning and dive into a book of provocative reportage, great stories, and witty, vigorous prose.

The crooner Rudy Vallée's soft, intimate, and sensual vocal delivery simultaneously captivated millions of adoring fans and drew harsh criticism from those threatened by his sensitive masculinity. Although Vallée and other crooners reflected the gender fluidity of late-1920s popular culture, their challenge to the Depression era's more conservative masculine norms led cultural authorities to stigmatize them as gender and sexual deviants. In Real Men Don't Sing Allison McCracken outlines crooning's history from its origins in minstrelsy through its development as the microphone sound most associated with white recording artists, band singers, and radio stars. She charts early crooners’ rise and fall between 1925 and 1934, contrasting Rudy Vallée with Bing Crosby to demonstrate how attempts to contain crooners created and dictated standards of white masculinity for male singers. Unlike Vallée, Crosby survived the crooner backlash by adapting his voice and persona to adhere to white middle-class masculine norms. The effects of these norms are felt to this day, as critics continue to question the masculinity of youthful, romantic white male singers. Crooners, McCracken shows, not only were the first pop stars: their short-lived yet massive popularity fundamentally changed American culture.

This reader collects primary documents on the phonograph, cinema, and radio before WWII to show how Americans slowly came to grips with the idea of recorded and mediated sound. Through readings from advertisements, newspaper and magazine articles, popular fiction, correspondence, and sheet music, one gains an understanding of how early-20th-century Americans changed from music makers into consumers.

An intimate history of the crooner in popular music from the 1950s to the present. In this book, Alex Coles explores the history of the crooner—someone who sings close to the mic in a soft style—in popular music from the 1950s to the present. Each chapter focuses on how one song by one artist contributes to the image of the crooner in the popular imagination. The book describes the rich diversity of crooners throughout music history, including artists in disco, rock, hip-hop, and more such as Frank Sinatra, Scott Walker, Barry White, David Bowie, Bryan Ferry, Tom Waits, Grace Jones, Ian McCulloch, Nick Cave, and Nas. Ultimately, Coles shows how the crooner continues to connect listeners with their hidden feelings.

Ten friends go on a trip to Las Vegas looking for the fun excitement, women and the pure rush of living the high life in Sin City. One of the ten men has a dark secret that will cast them into the depths of Hell as they find themselves trapped in the underbelly of the city that never sleeps. Their friendship is replaced by a profound brotherhood as they fight to stay alive while playing a deadly and unrelenting game of cat and mouse with killers around every corner and people conspiring against them at every turn. Trained assassins want the ten men dead while the leader of a terrorist sleeper cells seeks vengence against the assasins. The FBI and Las Vegas PD are driven to stop the bad guys before they kill again. Meanwhile, lurking in the shadows is the biggest threat to them all, The Crooner.