Page - 56 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 02/01

56 | Florian Heesch www.jrfm.eu 2016, 2/1, 49–69 heterosexual gender norms through recorded popular song, thus introducing a kind of musical queerness avant la lettre. AMPLIFIED PRESENCE: MICROPHONIC BODIES Technology does not only deliver vocal sounds into times and places where the sing- ing body is absent; it may also enhance or amplify the presence of the body in the here and now. From a chronological perspective this has been a later step in the technolog- ical development: early sound recordings were produced by the mechanical transfor- mation of the vocal sounds into “tracks” on wax cylinders or records. Musicians, vo- calists as well as instrumentalists, had to adapt their performances to the very special conditions of the studio; “natural” singing was not possible because the position and movements of the body were strictly limited.23 Only with the development of the elec- tric microphone did a more natural singing become possible. The microphone allowed the recording of relatively low sounds, sounds that we usually only hear when our ear is close to the singer’s mouth. Thus, microphone technology not only improves the conditions for the presence of a voicing body, but even offers opportunities to enhance that presence. This effect can be used in popular song in various ways, all of which affect the identity behind the vocal sound. Here I will discuss three distinct representative strategies for amplifying the bodily presence, each related to certain musical styles and their respective cultural contexts. The first strategy for amplified presence is the singing style called “crooning”, which developed in the 1920s with the emergence of electric microphones and ra- dio broadcasting in the United States. As Knut Holtsträter emphasises in his study on crooners, for the first time in the history of singing a speaking voice could be used as solo voice together with orchestral accompaniment.24 The impression of intimacy results from the combination of a certain style of singing into the microphone with a strategy that is both lyrical and performative: the singing is close to talking at a low level of loudness; singing very close to the microphone creates an electroacoustic effect of giving greater prominence to the lower frequencies; the crooners used to address their audiences more directly in both their singing and their lyrics. Interest- ingly for the perspective of identity, the image of the crooner is primarily associated with male singers like Bing Crosby (1903–1977), Frank Sinatra (1915–1998), and Sammy Davis Jr. (1925–1990); Sinatra in particular embodied the stereotypical male crooner of the 1950s and 1960s. Nevertheless, many other singers, including female singers such as Billie Holiday (1915–1957) and Sarah Vaughan (1924–1990), made use of the crooning style.25 From the broad variety of examples I choose here Sinatra’s version 23 Cf. Gauß 2009, 164–191. 24 Holtsträter 2011, 151. 25 Cf. Hähnel 2015; Hähnel gives detailed analysis of the style of early crooners before Sinatra.