Bing Crosby's innovations as recording artist, actor, businessman, and radio and television performer. A multidisciplinary exploration, plus personal testimony from family members and colleagues.

Bing Crosby's innovations as recording artist, actor, businessman, and radio and television performer. A multidisciplinary exploration, plus personal testimony from family members and colleagues.

Going My Way: Bing Crosby and American Culture is the first serious study of the singer/actor's art and of his centrality to the history of twentieth-century popular music, film, and the entertainment industry. The volume uses a wide range of scholarly and cultural perspectives to explore Crosby's unique and lasting achievements. It also includes tributes and reminiscences from Bing's widow Kathryn, his grandson Steve, his record producer Ken Barnes, and one of his most popular successors, Michael Feinstein. Other contributors include Gary Giddins, the author of a widely acclaimed recent biography of the singer, and Will Friedwald, the acknowledged expert on the developmentof the "great American songbook."
In addition to studying Bing Crosby's innovations and remarkable achievements as a recording artistGoing My Way explores his accomplishments as an actor, businessman, and radio and television performer.Going My Way makes an impressive case not only for Crosby's considerable talent and inimitable style, but also for his raising the quality of popular singing to the level of art.

Contributors: Ken Barnes, Samuel L. Chell, Kathryn Crosby, Steven C. Crosby, John Mark Dempsey, Bernard F. Dick, Deborah Dolan, Michael Feinstein, Will Friedwald, Jeanne Fuchs, Gary Giddins, Peter Hammar, M. Thomas Inge, Malcolm MacFarlane, Eric Michael Mazur, Martin McQuade, Elaine Anderson Phillips, Ruth Prigozy, Walter Raubicheck, Linda A. Robinson, Stephen C. Shafer, David White, F.W. Wiggins

Ruth Prigozy is Professor of English at Hofstra University. Walter Raubicheck is Professor of English and Chair of the English Department at Pace University.

Introduction: Bing Crosby -- Nothing Is What It Seems - Gary Giddins
Analogies of Ignorance inGoing My Way - David E. White
Going My Way?: Crosby and Catholicism on the Road to America - Eric Michael Mazur
Saint Bing: Apatheia, Masculine Desire, and the Films of Bing Crosby - Elaine Anderson Phillips
Bing on a Binge: Casting-Against-Type inThe Country Girl - Linda A. Robinson
Bing Crosby: Rock 'n' Roll Godfather - John Mark Dempsey
American Archetypes: How Crosby and Hope Became Hollywood's Greatest Comedy Team - Walter Raubicheck
Crosby at Paramount: From Crooner to Actor - Bernard F. Dick
Bing Crosby, Walt Disney, and Ichabod Crane - M. Thomas Inge
A Couple of Song and Dance Men: Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire - Jeanne Fuchs
Rivalries: The Mutual Mentoring of Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra - Samuel J. Chell
From Crooner to American Icon: Caricatures of Bing Crosby in American Cartoons from the 1930s to the 1950s - Stephen C. Shafer
Not Just "The Crooner": Bing Crosby's Research and Business Endeavors in World War II - Deborah Dolan
Bing's Entertainment and War Bond Sales Activities During World War II - Malcolm Macfarlane
Bing Crosby's Magnetic Tape Revolution - Peter Hammar and Martin McQuade
The Bing Crosby Fan Clubs - F. B. (Wig) Wiggins
Conclusion: Bing Crosby -- Architect of Twentieth-Century Style - Will Friedwald
Sing, Bing, Sing - Kathryn Crosby
Thoughts on Relationships: Father, Son, Grandson - Steven Crosby
The Real Bing Crosby - Ken Barnes