The box sits in the corner of my record case, unopened for at least three decades. A collector once offered me $500 for it. The songs on the 10 records in the case — “Pennies From Heaven,” “Sweet ...

Bing Crosby -- "the first hip white person born in the United States"? That's what Artie Shaw called him in 1992, but if not for a new biography by jazz writer Gary Giddins, chances are we never would ...

What: Gary Giddins celebrates the release of “Bing Crosby: Swinging On a Star - The War Years 1940-1946” with two events in Spokane 2 p.m. Thursday: The Bing Crosby Theater, 901 W. Sprague Ave. 7 p.m.

It’s been almost 18 years since the publication of “Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams,” Gary Giddins’s intelligent and formidably well-informed biography covering the entertainer’s life from his ...

When Bing Crosby recorded 1942’s “White Christmas,” the entertainer was reportedly “in the dumps.” Author Gary Giddins, who recently wrote the biography “Bing Crosby Swinging on a Star: The War Years ...

Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong struck up a friendship in the 1920s that flourished as they worked together—for almost half a century—on stage, in movies, and on radio and TV. This week on Riverwalkl ...

Jazz critic Giddins's latest subject will probably surprise those who think of Bing Crosby (1903-1977) as ""a square old man who made orange-juice commercials"" and sang ""White Christmas"" every year ...

In Bing Crosby: Swinging on a Star - The War Years (1940-1946) -- the much-anticipated follow-up to the universally acclaimed first volume, Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams - The Early Years (1903 - ...

Bing Crosby, I once argued to a friend, is the indispensable figure in American entertainment. When she countered with Frank Sinatra, I simply said: Without Crosby, there is no Sinatra.

Elvis, whose iconic image is everywhere, got loads of ink on the 25th anniversary of his death in August. But let's not ignore the other towering artist who died the same year but has largely been ...

FOR nearly two decades, from 1935 to 1955, Bing Crosby was the most popular entertainer in America, perhaps in the world. His recording of Irving Berlin's White Christmas is the single most popular ...

As a biographer, top jazz critic Gary Giddins seems to have created his own niche: rescuing musical giants from their own iconic status. Giddins' 1988 biography Satchmo: The Genius Of Louis Armstrong ...