"No one will forget Grandpa Bing."
Not true. To wit, in the May 9, 2012 on-line edition of The Wall Street Journal author Joanne Kaufman opened an article in the "Books" section with the following:
"More than a dozen years ago, jazz critic Gary Giddins made an appointment with his editor at the publisher William Morrow. Mr. Giddins had some very good news: He'd completed his manuscript of his long-aborning Bing Crosby biography. But Mr. Giddins also had a bit of bad news: It was merely volume one.
"Well, in that case the editor had some bad news of her own: The nine-year-old project was being killed and the advance would have to be returned. "She said, 'Who's Bing Crosby? Is it someone our parents knew?'" recalled Mr. Giddins, who got a far more sympathetic hearing at Little, Brown & Co., which was immediately on board with the two-volume approach. In 2001, the company published the 768-page "Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams—the Early Years (1903-1940)." As for Der Bingle's later years, "all I can say is I'm working every day," Mr. Giddins said."
Sadly, I daresay that if today you were to ask the average 20-something for their thoughts on Mr. Crosby the response would likewise be a disheartening "Who?".