Bob Crosby

For most of his early career, Bob Crosby was overshadowed by his older brother Bing. Nevertheless, he achieved modest success thanks to a pleasant voice and a winning personality. In the pre-swing era years he sang with Anson Weeks and then joined the big band co-led by brothers Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey. In 1935, he was approached by disaffected musicians who had left the Ben Pollack Band and needed a frontman to complete their new group. Crosby accepted the job, bringing a casual, relaxed air to one of the swing era’s liveliest bands. After the Bob Crosby Band folded in 1942, Crosby continued to make films and personal appearances, sometimes as leader of reconstituted Dixieland-style bands, sometimes of more contemporary-sounding bands.