From: http://wpcontent.answers.com/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9d/Gene_Austin_01.jpg/220px-Gene_Austin_01.jpg
Above: Gene Austin – Father of “Crooning”
The original crooners were male singers from the 1920s to the early 1960s who sang in an operatic, clear light tenor voice combined with intonations that reflect jazz and blues styling. Gene Austin, proclaimed as the singer who gave birth to the singing form of crooning, started the art form in the mid-1920s. The roots of crooning goes back to the Italian Opera, where orchestras played behind the booming voices of the opera singers. Crooning differs from the opera because of its jazz influence, resulting in much more subtle, smoother voices along with the orchestra or a big band as the instrumentals. Crooning became the most popular form of music up until the beginning of the “Rock and Roll” era, circa late 1950s, early 1960s. (Reference 1)
