But their classic collaboration on "The Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth," recorded for a Christmas special in 1977 and released as a single in 1982, almost didn't happen, according to interviews in the Bing Crosby bio film out this month on PBS' American Masters.
The duet went down on Crosby's 1977 special Merrie Olde Christmas. Crosby, who was a harbinger of the holiday season thanks to "White Christmas," did a Christmas special every year. This one was shot in London, with a storyline that had Bing visiting a relative in England.
Bowie was booked on the show to promote his new single "Heroes," and agreed to duet with Bing in exchange for an airing of a video of him performing the song earlier in the telecast. Larry Grossman, a writer on the special, says that they had decided Crosby and Bowie would sing "The Little Drummer Boy" together.
"And when we told Bowie about the number, he said 'I won't sing that song... I hate that song. And if I have to do that song, I can't do the show,'" Grossman says.
Grossman also says Bowie told him, "I'm doing the show because my mother loves Bing Crosby."
It was a music teacher at Concord Academy in Massachusetts, Katherine K. Davis, who wrote the tune, first known as "Carol of the Drum," in 1941. It gained fame first through a version recorded by the Trapp Family Singers and was a hit song in the 1958 recording by the Harry Simeone Chorale.
But for Bowie, it was no go.
"We decided the best way to salvage the arrangement was to do a counter-melody that would fit in between the spaces and maybe write a new bridge, and see if we can sell him that," says another writer of the special, Buz Kohan.
So they put together Bowie's "Peace on Earth" part.
"It all happened rather rapidly," Kohan says. "I would say within an hour, we had written it and were able to present it to him again."
It was an indelible moment for the Crosby children, who were on set for what was the last of a series of family Christmas specials.
"We were pretty young," says Mary Crosby, 55, the singer's only daughter, who was also an actress (having shot J.R. on Dallas). "We knew that this was happening."
In what American Masters producers said was their first reunion before the media since that special, Mary Crosby, along with her brothers Nathaniel and Harry, appeared with their mother and Bing's widow Kathryn Crosby in August to talk about the PBS special before TV reporters at the TV Critics Association press tour. That's where the Bowie question came up.
"We were all on set, and the doors opened, and David walked in with his wife," Mary Crosby said. "And they're both wearing full-length mink coats. They have matching full makeup, and their hair was bright red and about this long. And I just remember looking at the boys, and we were just thinking, 'Oh, my God.'"
"That first moment when he walked in, it's etched in my memory," she said.
"You should have seen the way he was dressed in rehearsal," added Nathaniel Crosby, Bing's youngest son. "It almost didn't happen. And I think the producers told him to take the lipstick off and take the earring out."
"But then they sat at the piano," Mary Crosby said. "David was a little nervous, and he said, 'Well, I only sing in this key.' And Dad's like, 'Don't worry. I'll get in there somehow.'
"And then you could just see it happening. Dad realized that David was this amazing musician, and David realized that he was with this amazing musician and that they were there to make music," she said. "And you could just see them both collectively relax, and then magic was made. And I do think it is one of the most extraordinary duets still."
"It happened, and it was just incredible," Nathaniel Crosby said. "It was right in the middle of the '70s. I think he'd just done Changes and had a couple of hits. But it was just incredible to see the contrast and then, when they sat down at the piano, for them to put what has really now become a cult classic together."
That it came at the end of Crosby's career — they taped it in September and he died in October 1977, weeks before the November telecast — makes it an even more poignant meeting of the generations.
The road to cult classic came rockily, as the unusual duet was first bootlegged for Bowie fans on a single that put his "Heroes" performance from the special on the flip.
When MTV launched in 1981, without a wealth of seasonal material come Christmastime, it started playing the duet, leading RCA to issue an official release in 1982 with the arbitrary B-side of "Fantastic Voyage" from The Lodger album. Bowie was annoyed with that move, according to Nicholas Pegg's 2000 The Complete David Bowie, contributing to his departure from the label soon after. Still, it was a high-charting single for Bowie in the post-Scary Monsters era, reaching #3 on both UK and German charts (his Let's Dance juggernaut for EMI would start three months later). And of course, it's been a seasonal pop staple ever since.
December 18, 2014
More Song Writing
