Bing Crosby Swinging on a Star The War Years, 1940-1946 [Hardcover]

The best thing to happen to Bing Crosby since Bob Hope, (WSJ) Gary Giddins presents the second volume of his masterful multi-part biography

Bing Crosby dominated American popular culture in a way that few artists ever have. From the dizzy era of Prohibition through the dark days of the Second World War, he was a desperate nation's most beloved entertainer. But he was more than just a charismatic crooner: Bing Crosby redefined the very foundations of modern music, from the way it was recorded to the way it was orchestrated and performed.

In this much-anticipated follow-up to the universally acclaimed first volume, NBCC Winner and preeminent cultural critic Gary Giddins now focuses on Crosby's most memorable period, the war years and the origin story ofWhite Christmas. Set against the backdrop of a Europe on the brink of collapse, this groundbreaking work traces Crosby's skyrocketing career as he fully inhabits a new era of American entertainment and culture. While he would go on to reshape both popular music and cinema more comprehensively than any other artist, Crosby's legacy would be forever intertwined with his impact on the home front, a unifying voice for a nation at war. Over a decade in the making and drawing on hundreds of interviews and unprecedented access to numerous archives, Giddins brings Bing Crosby, his work, and his world to vivid life--firmly reclaiming Crosby's central role in American cultural history.Gary Giddins wrote the Weather Bird jazz column in theVillage Voicefor over 30 years and later directed the Leon Levy Center for Biography at the CUNY Graduate Center. He received the National Nook Critics Circle Award, the Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award, and the Bell Atlantic Award forVisions of Jazz: The First Centuryin 1998. His other books includeBing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams-The Early Years, 1930-1940, which won the Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award and the ARlc(