Bing Crosby biographer to speak at UDLA dinner

1:17 p.m., April 25, 2005--Award-winning author, columnist and documentary filmmaker Gary Giddins will discuss “Bing Crosby: The Jazz Years,” at the University of Delaware Library Associates annual dinner Tuesday, May 3, in Arsht Hall, at 2700 Pennsylvania Ave., on UD’s Wilmington campus.

The Wilmington Trust Co. is sponsoring the dinner.

In his latest book, Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams: The Early Years, 1903-1940 (2002), Giddins traces one of America’s favorite entertainers from a wild childhood in Spokane, Wash., to superstar status at the beginning of World War II.

The May 3 dinner is open to the public, but reservations are required. Dinner prices are $75 per person for members of the University of Delaware Library Associates and $100 for guests. Refreshments will be available at 6 p.m., followed by dinner at 7.

Invitations are available by e-mailing [UDLA@udel.edu] or calling the Office of the Director of Libraries at (302) 831-2231.

“Crosby was the first pop singer superstar, 15 years before Frank Sinatra,” Giddins said in a recent e-mail interview. “The first pop superstar was Crosby’s boss, orchestra leader Paul Whiteman.”

Giddins said that originally he turned down several requests to do a book on Crosby from a publisher who had published one of his earlier books.

“I did some research and realized there hadn’t been a serious book on him since the 1940s, and that there was more to the man than I or most other people knew,” Giddins said.

Gary Giddins

Among the challenges, Giddins said, was dealing with individuals who assumed that he was writing another “hatchet-job” on the singer, as well as finding viewable and complete copies of movies that had not been seen for nearly 70 years.

Giddins said he did enjoy writing the book for a variety of reasons, including the chance to become great friends with the late singer Rosemary Clooney, a long-time colleague of Crosby.

“I also enjoyed digging in archives, undermining false stories and finding better ones, and studying his work on records, radio and in films,” Giddins said. “I set out to show, inch-by-inch, how an ordinary boy from the wrong side of the tracks became the most celebrated and influential entertainer of his era, and to examine the work as well as the life.”

A Village Voice columnist for many years, Giddins is the recipient of a National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism, a pair of Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Awards, five ASCAP-Deems Taylor Awards, a George Foster Peabody Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship. The New York City resident also received national attention for his commentary in Ken Burns’ PBS-TV Jazz documentary series.

Books by Giddins include, Visions of Jazz: The First Century; Satchmo: The Genius of Louis Armstrong; Riding on a Blue Note: Jazz and American Pop; and Celebrating Bird: The Triumph of Charlie Parker.

Other works include Rhythm-a-ning: Jazz Tradition and Innovation; Faces in the Crowd: Musicians, Writers, Actors and Filmmakers; Faces in The Crowd: Players and Writers; and Weather Bird: Jazz at the Dawn of Its Second Century. His newest book, Nothing If Not Critical: Gary Giddins on Books, Movies, TV and Comics, will be published in June.

Article by Jerry Rhodes

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