THE STORY OF GOD BLESS AMERICA A must read before watching the video! 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. The link below will take you to Kates first time singing God Bless America in public, but before you watch it, you should also know the story behind this performance: The time was 1940. America was still in a terrible economic depression. Hitler was taking over Europe and Americans were afraid wed 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 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 Kate described what she was looking for, he said he had just the song for her. Berlin went to his files and found a song that he had written, but never published - 22 years earlier, in 1917. Kate worked on it with her studio orchestra. She and Berlin were not sure how the song would be received, but both agreed they would not take any potential profits from it, and instead, give them to the Boy Scouts of America. (The Boy Scouts have received millions in royalties since then.) This video begins with Kate entering the radio studio with her orchestra and an audience. After a couple verses, with Kates voice still singing in the background, scenes are shown from the 1940 movie, Youre In The Army Now. At minute 4:20, you see a young Ronald Reagan sitting in an office, reading a paper. [A few seconds later, Jimmy Stewart.] To this day, God Bless America stirs our patriotic feelings and national pride. When Kate Smith was just looking for a song to raise American spirits, I doubt she realized how successful the results would be during those years of hardship and worry... and for many generations thereafter. Many people dont know there was originally a lead-in to the song, since todays version starts immediately with God Bless America... Heres the entire song as it was originally sung. https://youtube/embed/TnQDW-NMaRs
Posted on: Sun, 06 Apr 2014 15:30:32 +0000
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