How Bing Crosby changed pop music

Crosby's weekly radio series, Kraft Music Hall, had made his voice as welcome in the American living room as Franklin Roosevelt's

Television viewers who grew up in the 1970s knew Bing Crosby as the grandfatherly singing star of wholesome family specials, tuned into by their parents. Crosby was pipe-smoking, unruffled and witty, much like Father O’Malley, the Catholic priest he had played in two oft-rerun films, Going My Way and The Bells of St. Mary’s. By his side were his smiling wife and their model children, none of whom an even vaguely countercultural youth would have wanted to sit next to in the school cafeteria.

Since his music was not theirs, newer generations had no way to know that Crosby had not