6Along with Rudy Vallee and Bing Crosby, Russ Columbo was the model crooner of the late 1920s, with a smoothly sentimental ballad style. His mellifluous but melancholy voice spoke to many Americans still drifting in the malaise after World War I and at the beginning of the depression. But unlike most crooners, Columbo not only wrote and sang songs about lovestruck dreamers but also lived out such stories, unable or unwilling to separate art from life. Based on material from the singers personal effects, including original music transcripts, photographs, diaries, and love letters, the biography also includes concise histories of the most important crooners and the controversies their theatrics often elicited.