Rating: 
Summary: Bing Swings!
Review: Gary Giddins has presented us with a masterful biography of the musicology of Bing Crosby. This volume is the early years through 1940, and it minutely follows Bing's evolving musicianship from his early days with the Rhythm Boys, through his early jazz days, to films and records. The author critiques a staggering array of songs and arrangements.What struck me early on was the instant recognition of Bing's ability by the big names as well as his peers. Though he was not a dependable, responsible youngster (early 20's), he still was instantly sought after. His voice was so extraordinary; it paved the way for him. I particularly enjoyed reading of his early days with Bix Beiderbecke and Frankie Trambauer, their escapades as well as their music. In less than a year, Bing was well known in musical circles and played with Paul Whiteman (whose patience with Bing was saintly!). There's no denying Bing was lucky as well as gifted. Never have I read of a guy who was in the right place at the right time more than Bing. Bing, apparently at the behest of wife Dixie, did a turnaround in attitude and consumption of alcohol (and probably marijuana as well) and became an incredibly hard working solid citizen. Alas, this left little or no time for his marriage and sons, for when Bing was not on the job, he was an obsessive golfer, outdoorsman, and competitor. One thread that carries over everything he did was he didn't like to lose. It is hard to comprehend just how one man could be as continually successful at whatever he turned his hand to. His positives were he never forgot an old friend, his modesty, generosity, and delightful cool sense of humor. His negatives were his total detachment, a dogged stubbornness and lack of forgiveness. You never got a second chance with Crosby. This is a remarkable biography. It contains a discography, filmography, endnotes and index. I admire Mr. Giddins' avoiding any trace of attempting to psychoanalyze his subject. However, I wouldn't have minded an occasional opinion as to the "why" of some of Bing's actions, but Mr. Giddin's resolutely sticks with his Joe Friday persona. The book is lengthy and requires close attention, but is well worth your while.
-sweetmolly-Amazon Reviewer
Rating: 
Summary: The definitive Bing
Review: Gary Giddins has pulled off a tremendous feat of scholarship in this definitive biography. His portrait of Bing's early life is unsurpassed, and I learned plenty of things I never knew about Bing's childhood in Spokane -- and I LIVE in Spokane. As impressive as the scholarship is, the best thing about the book is Giddins' knack for dramatic storytelling. This is, above all, a great yarn about a likable and intelligent guy who who just happened to become the biggest entertainer of his time. Some biographers have blown this ready-made story; Giddins makes the most of it. Like Giddins himself, I went into this book assuming Bing was a heel, as other biographers have charged. Giddins learns otherwise, and he'll convince you, too. He rehabilitates Bing's reputation with authority and fairness, and I would guess that this particular view of Bing is the one that will stick. Giddins is the very model of a dogged, fair and talented biographer.
Rating:
Summary: S'Wonderful, S'Marvelous...
Review: Gary Giddins struts his stuff, a wonderful book about American life, jazz, movies, and, of course, the brilliant and complicated man, Bing Crosby.
Rating:
Summary: A Musicologist Biography
Review: Giddins has performed a small miracle. He has pulled Bing Crosby's name, voice and genius out of the mire of rumour and condemnation it was tossed into during the 70's and 80's. This biography is a charming mix of biographical fact (and only fact) and musicology. Crosby changed popular singing in the 20th centutry in profound and important ways. All jazz and popular singing harken back to Armstrong and Crosby. Giddins draws a wonderful portrait here of Bing, full of complexity and contradiction. This serves to make him a more compelling persona. This book seeks to understand Crosby and his musical importance. In this it succeeds brillantly. My only complaint...where is the companion cd? For Gary's insightful and well-balanced work here, this Crosby fan says, "Thank You."
Rating:
Summary: astounding acheivement!
Review: Having read every review of this book I could find on the internet and in magazine stores & newspapers, I was surprised to find only two MILDLY negative reviews out of a total of about twenty-five - all the rest of the reviews were ecstatic. Then I read the book and discoverd the reason for this statistic: This is a remarkable book. First of all, the book does a superb job of placing the youngster Harry Crosby in his place & time in the early years of the century. As a life-long Crosby watcher, I was amazed that there could still be new things for me to learn about the man (& boy), but Giddins keeps the facts, observations, and trajectory of the story going at an absorbing clip. But the real fascination for me comes once Bing enters his professional years: Giddins' delineation of Bing's works - records, films, broadcasts - is nothing short of awesome. This single volume does more to create the atmosphere of a particular era in our nation's culture and history (as reflected in it's popular entertainment) than any other book I've ever read (and I've read most of 'em!) Along with this, Giddins continues with the story of Bing's life. Not as much of the sadness in the story as some folks seem to be clamoring for, but that's just the way it was: these were Bing's happiest years, and the later volume will, no doubt, explore some of those other aspects of Bing's life. The greatest thing about this book, I think, is that it serves as a rediscovery of what one critic (McDonough in the "Wall Street Journal") claims we should have known all along - that Bing Crosby was the most important performer of the first half of the last century. As such, it's fitting that he is now the subject of one of the all-time great in-depth studies of a performing life.
Rating:
Summary: Helen Rutherfords reveiw
Review: I am a big fan of Bing Crosby and I am quite a young one at 12 years old. This amazing book by Gary Giddins really makes one appreciate the contribution the crooner made to American popular music and to America itself.Although it took me many hours to read the book, every minute of it was really worth it. I strongly recomend this book as it one of the best biographies of Bing Crosby ever written.
Rating: 
Summary: Question the research
Review: I enjoyed reading this biography of Bing especially since it included information on my father, Mike Pecarovich. I have to point out the poor editing job, however. My father's name was consistently misspelled as Pecarovitch. I haven't seen the paperback edition but sincerely hope the mistake was corrected.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Book about a Great Man
Review: I have loved Bing Crosby for the last 25 years. It was such a pleasure to read a book that truly captured his persona and his amazing talent. Gary Giddins seems to have exhausted every avenue in researching this book, and it shows. He claims that when he began researching the book he assumed that Bing Crosby was a "real S.O.B." However, by the time he had completed his reasearch, he found he had been wrong because everyone he interviewed adored Bing. He went behind the sensationalist stories published since the death of Bing Crosby and found that the truth was far different from that portrayed in those books. Despite the fact that Mr. Giddins redeems Bing Crosby's character, the book does not focus primarily on Crosby's personal life. Rather, the vast majority of the book is spent documenting Crosby's decades-long domination of every medium of entertainment and his influence on every singer to come after him. I highly recommend this book. As an aside, to those who are interested in reading even more about the person that was Bing Crosby, I also highly recommend Kathryn Crosby's book, "My Life with Bing." It is a very funny, intelligent and loving tribute to the man that was her husband for 20 years prior to his death.
Rating:
Summary: An Very Biography-But Not Perfect
Review: I wish you could give half stars, coz this is better than 4 stars but not quite five.
When I first picked this book up I wondered "700+ pages on Bing Crosby?" Tho a Crosby fan (more of his early work than later), I wondered if there was enough material for 700+ pages, and that just in the first volume. There is, tho with some judicious editing it could have been cut down a bit. (There is some repetition in the book, especially the author's emphasizing again and again that "Bing made great contributions to American Music", as though we in the younger generations really had to be convinced.)
What I didn't like was the author's putting down some of Crosby's contemporaries. He was relatively kind to Russ Columbo, but scathing on Rudy Vallee. I'm not particularly a Vallee fan, but you have to credit the guy's popularity, and his longevity in show business as a big name. He had a wild, faddish vogue in the early part of his career, which was bound to fade when a more talented performer like Crosby came around, but he stayed in show business as a name to be reckoned with until the mid 60s. And tho he was portrayed as a blowhard and boaster, Vallee at least had enough of a sense of humor to mock his own image in movies like "The Palm Beach Story".
Also the author puts down John Boles, a popular actor of the 30s, who beat Crosby out of an important number in the early musical "The King of Jazz" (it was Crosby's own fault). Again, Boles is nobody in comparison with Crosby when it comes to fame or importance, but he had a decent film career, and before I saw "The King of Jazz", I mainly knew him from films like "Frankenstein" and "Stella Dallas", and when I first saw "The King of Jazz", I was impressed that he could sing at all.
Also, as a footnote, the author relates the story of a talent contest run in Spokane as part of a Bing Crosby homecoming celebration, noting that one of the winners was Janet Waldo, and not saying much more than that. Janet Waldo did make some movies, never becoming a film star, but she did later become one of the more durable voice artists in radio and television, specialising in teenage girls (famously as Corliss Archer and Judy Jetson-and in one particular episode of I Love Lucy) into what must have been her old age-sort of a female Arnold Stang (I hope that isn't an insult!) I thought this successful part of her career was worth a mention, especially since Hollywood talent contests of the time seemd to be mere publicity stunts, and that winners were usually given a bit part in a b-film and shipped straight home to obscurity.
But for the most part, I enjoyed the book very much. It was well written, well researched, and gave more information than you knew existed on Crosby's recordings and his movies. As someone who knows almost nothing about the more technical aspects of music, such as chord changes and harmonies, the technical descriptions of Crosby's singing went over my head and I didn't quite know what the author was talking about, but I guess that stuff is for the jazz buffs amongst the readership, and my ignorance is not the author's fault. The book was also especially good on one Crosby subject I had always been curious about: the break-up of the Rhythm Boys, and Crosby's subsequent relationships with Al Rinker and Harry Barris. I knew from seeing Crosby's films that Barris frequently had small parts in them, and figured they were probably favors from Crosby to an old pal. His split with Rinker was sadder, but from the descriptions in the book, probably inevitable. (I was so dumb on this subject that I never knew Mildred Bailey was Al Rinker's sister!)
Overall, very well worth buying and reading if you are interested in the history of American music, films or popular culture in general in the 20th Century.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Book - still waiting for volume II!
Review: I, along with Candace Scott and David Lobosco (see below) am on the INTERNET BING CROSBY MUSEUM page, and invite you to join and do disccusion on the board thereon. Now to the book:
First to that sourpuss writing from Mexico, the guy who complained of Bing's (here were go again) Bing beinbg a "MONSTER" ,writing that Bing had a bad family career-he'll get to that later, but it doesn't mean Bing was a bad guy--girl swooned over him like happened with no one else! Like a lot of biographers on the topic, and as has been said, Giddins first didn't care for Bing but wanted to give fans what they wanted, it it was Bing, and he WAS a major star then turned out a major fan, maybe the biggest. Which applies to THIS project--there is a second volume coming out (with Sinatra, World War II, White XMAS and other factors Bing afloat down the historical pike!Not to mention the Andrews Sisters legendary duets,either!!) Bing was THE original white jazz popularizer. Vocal OR Instrumentla.With Paul WHiteman's1920s Rhythm Boys (Harris Barris and Al Rinker, cowriter of ongs for Disney's first post-Walt flick, "ARISTOCATS"), Bing became a legend. In 1931 CBS's William S.Paley signed him to an exclusive radio contractr, a new label Decca's Jack Kapp (1900-1949) did he same for Bing Crosby for disc, and legendry film pioneer Adolph Zukor of Paramount Pictures, of course, for flicks. Of course Giddins covers trhe rest and we know the rest, which as they say is history-and as Paul Harvey says, we know the REST of the story. Neither a critic nor a out and out "groupie" as such, Mr.Giddins, a famed VILLAGE VOICE jazz writer, has interesting things about the material of the man, and his thoughts, which sadly DO condescend toward Rudy Vallee and Nick Lucas, and other stars ofthe late 1920s. (One wonders hwther Vallee OR Crosby were the first crooners..) I wait with baited breath for the NEXT volume. If you're like a lot of people who THINK that they know their Bing---i.e., MINUTE MAID orange juice guy, amiable family guy on 1960s variety shows, White XMAS, Road trips, rock star David Bowie duet-ter, Andrews Sisters partner (but at least THERE ya gotta give him cedibility if you're a one of the growing swing fans..)....be prepared..be surprised..be fascinated. Vol.II hopefully will be out thsi yeaer, but I can't promise anything...
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