Bing Crosby
Page 87
Bing Crosby never had a better friend than Rosemary Clooney, and neither have I. She’s become a member of the family, or have I become a member of hers? Hers is certainly larger, and I love them all. Rosemary’s encouragement, beyond her substantive help and extraordinary generosity to me and Debbie and especially Lea, has meant more than she can imagine. At the same time, she is the critic about whom I am most nervous — ‘cause she knows, and thanks to her I know more than would otherwise have been possible.
My thanks to Alice Giddins and Helen and Norman Halper are boundless. I am grateful to Aaron Donner, and his mom, Ronnie Halper, for the loan of his computer-wizard dad, Marc Donner, and to Donna and Paul Rothchild for their computer savvy and the loan of their children — listed above, earning their keep. Many thanks to Norma Salfarlie.
My wife, Deborah Halper, and daughter, Lea, lived through every sentence of this book. My only regret is the weekends and evenings it kept me from them. On the other hand, I don’t expect ever to forget the look on Lea’s face the night she met Bob Hope; you would have thought he was Derek Jeter. No writer ever had a more loving and supportive family — all of my books are for them, but this one is truly theirs.
The author is grateful for permission to include the following previously copyrighted material:
Excerpts from “Livin’ in the Sunlight, Lovin’ in the Moonlight” by Al Sherman and Al Lewis. Copyright 1930 by Famous Music Corporation. Copyright renewed © 1957 by Famous Music Corporation. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Excerpts from “Ballad for Americans,” music by John LaTouche and lyrics by Earl Robinson. Copyright © 1939 (renewed) by Music Sales Corporation and Sony ATV. Copyright 1940 Sony/ATV Tunes LLC (renewed). All rights administered by Sony/ ATV Music Publishing, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Excerpts from “Stereophonic Sound” by Cole Porter. © 1955 Cole Porter. © (renewed). Assigned to Robert H. Montgomery, Jr., Trustee of the Cole Porter Musical & Literary Property Trusts. Chappell & Co., owner of publication and allied rights throughout the world. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Warner Bros. Publications U.S. Inc., Miami, FL 33014.
Excerpts from “Shadow Waltz” by Harry Warren and Al Dubin. © 1933 (renewed) Warner Bros. Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Warner Bros. Publications U.S. Inc., Miami, FL 33014.
“I’m an Old Cowhand” by Johnny Mercer. © 1936 EMI Feist Catalog Inc. © renewed, assigned to Johnny Mercer Foundation in USA (administered by WB Music Corp.). All rights outside USA controlled by EMI Feist Catalog Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Warner Bros. Publications U.S. Inc., Miami, FL 33014.
“Pennies from Heaven” by John Burke and Arthur Johnston. © 1936 (renewed) Chappell & Co. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Warner Bros. Publications U.S. Inc., Miami, FL 33014.
Excerpts from “Mr. Gallagher & Mr. Sheen” by Ed Gallagher and Al Sheen. © 1922 (renewed) EMI Mills Music, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Warner Bros. Publications U.S. Inc., Miami, FL 33014.
Excerpts from “Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams (And Dream Your Troubles Away),” lyric by Ted Koehler and Billy Moll, music by Harry Barris. Copyright © 1931 Shapiro, Bernstein & Co., Inc., New York. Copyright renewed. All rights for the extended term administered by Fred Ahlert Music Corporation on behalf of Ted Koehler. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Excerpts from “What Do I Care, It’s Home,” lyrics by Roy Turk and music by Harry Smolin. Copyright © 1932 by Bourne Co. and Cromwell Music Inc. Copyright renewed. All rights reserved. Used by permission. International copyright secured.
“THE THING YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND ABOUT BING CROSBY IS THAT HE WAS THE FIRST HIP WHITE PERSON BORN IN THE UNITED STATES.”
—ARTIE SHAW
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
SELECTED BY THE LOS ANGELES TIMES AND THE WASHINGTON POST AS ONE OF THE YEAR’S BEST BOOKS
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR
Bing Crosby dominated American popular culture as no one ever has. From the dizzy era of Prohibition through the dark days of the Second World War, he was the world’s most beloved entertainer. But he was also more than that: Bing Crosby was a musical innovator who practically invented modern pop singing.
In this universally acclaimed biography, the eminent cultural critic Gary Giddins draws on hundreds of interviews and unprecedented access to numerous archives as he brings Bing Crosby, his work, and his world to vivid life—and firmly reclaims Crosby’s central role in American cultural history.
“Gary Giddins may be the best thing to happen to Bing Crosby since Bob Hope…. Crosby couldn’t have hoped for a finer biographer: elegant writer, informed historian, thorough scholar, and one of America’s most eminent jazz critics.”
—John McDonough, Wall Street Journal
“This is, quite simply, the best-researched, best-written, most entertaining music biography I’ve read.”
—Merrill Noden, Mojo
“Phenomenal smarts and critical acumen…. A formidable biographer and exegetical wonder, Gary Giddins is so persuasive that even the most skeptical post-Boomer should close the book with the eerie sensation that it’s Bing’s world after all—we just live in it.”
—James Marcus, Atlantic Monthly
Gary Giddins received the National Book Critics Circle Award for visions of Jazz in 1998. In 2001 he received the prestigious Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award for Bing Crosby:A Pocketful of Dreams. His other books include biographies of louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker. Giddins, who was featured in the ken Burns PBS documentary Jazz,is a longtime columnist for the village voice and lives in New York City.
* “Watered any showcases” refers to the ritual of peeing in the flowers after a night out drinking; the Chronicle clipping is the January 1, 1926, article previously cited; envious was used synonymously for enviable in those days; the Ambassador Hotel housed the Cocoanut Grove; “classy looking twists” refers to women; the Foreign Club was the largest gambling house in Tia Juana (now Tijuana); Jay is Jay Eslick, a San Diego-based drummer and booking agent from Spokane and longtime drinking buddy of Bing’s; Ray Johnson led a band. (pn,130, chap 8)
* François Villon is today remembered as a very real fifteenth-century French poet. But early in the last century he was transfigured into a popular fictional character in such works as Robert Louis Stevenson’s story “Lodging for the Night,” Justin H. McCarthy’s novel If I Were King, and Rudolf Friml’s operetta The Vagabond King. (pn,313 ch16)