"Reading This Book Could Cost You a Lot of Money"

"In the early days of recording, trained opera singers (sopranos especially) often broke the tubes of radio transmitters. Among the early adopters of the latest kit was Bing Crosby, who, as well as working out that the tape-recorder would let him put out 'live' radio shows while he was on the golf course, also realised that not having to belt out a tune to the back row of the gods meant he could sing more intimately. So influential was his one-to-one sound that a few years later Mercury's Mitch Miller had Vic Damone singing in a lavatory cubicle, the better to make his out-of-this-world baritone a bit more down-to-earth."

Christopher Bray at The Critic reviews Bob Stanley's Let's Do It: The Birth of Pop.