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#1
07-03-2015, 03:05 PM
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God Bless America; The Song & The Story
A friend of mine sent me this back in June and I thought to myself that this would be a great musical story to post on the AGF on the 4th of July.
Frank Sinatra considered Kate Smith the best singer of her time, and said that when he and a million other guys first heard her sing "God Bless America" on the radio, they all pretended to have dust in their eyes as they wiped away a tear or two. Here are the facts... The link at the bottom will take you to a video showing the very first public singing of "GOD BLESS AMERICA". But before you watch it, you should also know the story behind the first public showing of the song. The time was 1940. America was still in a terrible economic depression. Hitler was taking over Europe and Americans were afraid we'd have to go to war. It was a time of hardship and worry for most Americans. This was the era just before TV, when radio shows were HUGE, and American families sat around their radios in the evenings, listening to their favorite entertainers, and no entertainer of that era was bigger than Kate Smith. Kate was also large; plus size, as we now say, and the popular phrase still used today is in deference to her, "It ain't over till the fat lady sings". Kate Smith might not have made it big in the age of TV, but with her voice coming over the radio, she was the biggest star of her time. Kate was also patriotic. It hurt her to see Americans so depressed and afraid of what the next day would bring . She had hope for America , and faith in her fellow Americans. She wanted to do something to cheer them up, so she went to the famous American song-writer, Irving Berlin (who also wrote "White Christmas") and asked him to write a song that would make Americans feel good again about their country. When she described what she was looking for, he said he had just the song for her. He went to his files and found a song that he had written, but never published, 22 years before way back in 1917. He gave it to her and she worked on it with her studio orchestra. She and Irving Berlin were not sure how the song would be received by the public, but both agreed they would not take any profits from God Bless America . Any profits would go to the Boy Scouts of America. Over the years, the Boy Scouts have received millions of dollars in royalties from this song. This video starts out with Kate Smith coming into the radio studio with the orchestra and an audience. She introduces the new song for the very first time, and starts singing. After the first couple verses, with her voice in the background still singing, scenes are shown from the 1940 movie, "You're In The Army Now." At the 4:20 mark of the video you see a young actor in the movie, sitting in an office, reading a paper; it's Ronald Reagan. To this day, God Bless America stirs our patriotic feelings and pride in our country. Back in 1940, when Kate Smith went looking for a song to raise the spirits of her fellow Americans, I doubt whether she realized just how successful the results would be for her fellow Americans during those years of hardship and worry..... And for many generations of Americans to follow. Now that you know the story of the song, I hope you'll enjoy it and treasure it even more. Many people don't know there's a lead in to the song since it usually starts with "God Bless America ....." So here's the entire song as originally sung..... ENJOY! As Paul Harvey would say...... Now you know the rest of the story.
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1957 Gibson RB-150 5 string banjo. Bought it new & I still have it. 1983 Yairi - Alvarez DY 73 1992 Taylor K-20 1993 Yair - Alvarez DY99A 2001 Yairi-Alvarez DY-91 SOLD! 2002 Taylor Stock 810 Ltd. 2003 Taylor 855e 2003 Taylor 814ce Fall Ltd 2003 Tradition Jerry Reid Sig. Telecaster 200? Esteban American Legacy (New Owner Lake Chautauqua Lutheran Center)  
Last edited by mdunn; 07-03-2015 at 03:26 PM. 
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#2
07-03-2015, 04:01 PM
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And Smith did successfully make the transition from radio into TV--in the early ‘50s, “The Kate Smith Show” was consistently top-rated and she was one of Ed Sullivan’s most frequent vocalist guests well into the 1960s.
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Sandy http://www.sandyandina.com ------------------------- Gramann Rapahannock, 7 Taylors, 4 Martins, 2 Gibsons, 2 V-A, Larrivee Parlour, Gretsch Way Out West, Fender P-J Bass & Mustang, Danelectro U2, Peavey fretless bass, 8 dulcimers, 2 autoharps, 2 banjos, 2 mandolins, 3 ukes I cried because I had no shoes.....but then I realized I won’t get blisters. Last edited by Chicago Sandy; 07-03-2015 at 04:07 PM.
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#4
07-03-2015, 05:57 PM
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Sandy brought up some points so I thought I would dig up the Wiki on the song.
Here it is......  Irving Berlin wrote the song in 1918 while serving the U.S. Army at Camp Upton in Yaphank, New York, but decided that it did not fit in a revue called Yip Yip Yaphank, so he set it aside.[3] The lyrics at that time included the line "Make her victorious on land and foam, God bless America..."[4] as well as "Stand beside her and guide her to the right with the light from above".[5] Music critic Jody Rosen says that a 1906 Jewish dialect novelty song, "When Mose with His Nose Leads the Band," contains a six-note fragment that is "instantly recognizable as the opening strains of "God Bless America"". He interprets this as an example of Berlin's "habit of interpolating bits of half-remembered songs into his own numbers."[6] Berlin, born Israel Baline, had himself written several Jewish-themed novelty tunes.[7]  Kate Smith, 1930s In 1938, with the rise of Adolf Hitler, Berlin, who was Jewish and a Russian immigrant, felt it was time to revive it as a "peace song," and it was introduced on an Armistice Day broadcast in 1938, sung by Kate Smith on her radio show.[8] Berlin had made some minor changes; by this time, "to the right" might have been considered a call to the political right, so he substituted "through the night" instead. He also provided an introduction that is now rarely heard but which Smith always used: "While the storm clouds gather far across the sea / Let us swear allegiance to a land that's free / Let us all be grateful for a land so fair, / As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer." (In her first broadcast of the song, Kate Smith sang "that we're far from there" rather than "for a land so fair".)[5] This was changed when Berlin published the sheet music in March 1939.[5] Woody Guthrie criticized the song, which he considered unrealistic and complacent, and in 1940 he wrote "This Land Is Your Land," originally titled "God Blessed America For Me," as a response.[9] Anti-Semitic groups such as the Ku Klux Klan also protest the song due to its authorship by a Jewish immigrant.[5] In 1943, Smith's rendition was featured in the patriotic musical This is the Army along with other Berlin songs. The manuscripts in the Library of Congress reveal the evolution of the song from victory to peace. Berlin gave the royalties of the song to the God Bless America Fund for redistribution to the Boy Scouts of America and the Girl Scouts of the USA. Smith performed the song on her two NBC television series in the 1950s and in her short-lived The Kate Smith Show on CBS, which aired on CBS from January 25 to July 18, 1960.[10] "God Bless America" also spawned another of Irving Berlin's tunes, "Heaven Watch The Philippines," during the end of World War II after he heard the Filipinos sing a slightly revised version of the song replacing "America" with "The Philippines." The song was used early in the Civil Rights Movement as well as at labor rallies.[5] During the 1960s, the song was increasingly used by Christian conservatives in the US to signal their opposition to secular liberalism and to silence dissenters who were speaking in favor of communism or in opposition to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.[11] Later, from December 11, 1969,[8] through the early 1970s, the playing of Smith singing the song before many home games of the National Hockey League's Philadelphia Flyers brought it renewed popularity as well as a reputation for being a "good luck charm" to the Flyers[8] long before it became a staple of nationwide sporting events.[8] The Flyers even brought Smith in to perform live before Game 6 of the 1974 Stanley Cup Finals on May 19, 1974, and the Flyers won the Cup that day.[8][10]
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1957 Gibson RB-150 5 string banjo. Bought it new & I still have it. 1983 Yairi - Alvarez DY 73 1992 Taylor K-20 1993 Yair - Alvarez DY99A 2001 Yairi-Alvarez DY-91 SOLD! 2002 Taylor Stock 810 Ltd. 2003 Taylor 855e 2003 Taylor 814ce Fall Ltd 2003 Tradition Jerry Reid Sig. Telecaster 200? Esteban American Legacy (New Owner Lake Chautauqua Lutheran Center)
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#5
07-03-2015, 07:27 PM
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For me, the best thing about "God Bless America" was that it inspired Woody Guthrie to write "This Land Is Your Land" as a sort of antidote to it.
In the shadow of the steeple
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#6
07-03-2015, 08:17 PM
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here is the source of many a quote here, good reading. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Bless_America
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#7
07-03-2015, 08:40 PM
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All the years combine, they melt into a dream A broken angel sings from a guitar 2005 Gibson J-45 1985 Guild D17 2012 Fender Am. Std. Stratocaster 1997 Guild Bluesbird
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