Crooner Perry Como rose to become one of the dominant American male vocalists of the 1940s and 1950s, and retained a rare degree of popularity over the decades that followed. He achieved his particular fame for the uniquely relaxed quality of his delivery that few have managed to emulate—indeed, so relaxed was he that his detractors considered the effect of his smooth, creamy baritone soporific rather than soothing, and a television comedian once parodied him as singing from his bed.

Born Pierino Como in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, the seventh of 13 children of Italian immigrants, Como began learning the barber trade as a child, with the intention of buying his own shop as early as his teens. Forced by his mill-worker father to finish high school, he finally set up his own barber shop in 1929. In 1934 he auditioned as a vocalist with a minor orchestra...