<span style="font-weight: bold">The very First singing of God Bless America</span>
You will enjoy this and you younger folks will learn some history...
The link below will take you to a the very first public singing of “GOD BLESS AMERICA. But, before you listen, you should also know the story of the song. The time was 1938. 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 in size, 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 very 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 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 struggled to write a new song for her. He then went to his files and found an unpublished song that he had written 20 years earlier, while serving in the U.S. Army at Camp Upton in Yaphank, New York. He gave it to Kate Smith 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 both the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts of America. These organizations were chosen, to quote the contract, because "the completely nonsectarian work of the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts is calculated to best promote unity of mind and patriotism, two sentiments that are inherent in the song itself."
Frank Sinatra considered Kate Smith the best singer of her time, and said 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…
To this day, “God Bless America ” stirs our patriotic feelings and pride in our country. Back in 1938, When Kate Smith went looking for a song to raise the spirits of her fellow Americans, I doubt 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 will enjoy it and treasure it even more.
God Bless America !
Link to the first performance of "God Bless America" sung on, November 10, 1938. This is the audio only performance.
<span style="color: #3366FF"><span style="text-decoration: underline">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnQDW-NMaRs</span></span>
When Warner Brothers made "This Is The Army" into a technicolor motion picture in 1943, Berlin insisted that there be a scene in which Kate herself re-created her radio introduction of God Bless America. She sang it complete with the seldom-heard introduction verse.
<object width="425" height="350"> <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/TnQDW-NMaRs&feature=related"></param> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param> <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/TnQDW-NMaRs&feature=related" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"> </embed></object>
You will enjoy this and you younger folks will learn some history...
The link below will take you to a the very first public singing of “GOD BLESS AMERICA. But, before you listen, you should also know the story of the song. The time was 1938. 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 in size, 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 very 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 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 struggled to write a new song for her. He then went to his files and found an unpublished song that he had written 20 years earlier, while serving in the U.S. Army at Camp Upton in Yaphank, New York. He gave it to Kate Smith 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 both the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts of America. These organizations were chosen, to quote the contract, because "the completely nonsectarian work of the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts is calculated to best promote unity of mind and patriotism, two sentiments that are inherent in the song itself."
Frank Sinatra considered Kate Smith the best singer of her time, and said 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…
To this day, “God Bless America ” stirs our patriotic feelings and pride in our country. Back in 1938, When Kate Smith went looking for a song to raise the spirits of her fellow Americans, I doubt 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 will enjoy it and treasure it even more.
God Bless America !
Link to the first performance of "God Bless America" sung on, November 10, 1938. This is the audio only performance.
<span style="color: #3366FF"><span style="text-decoration: underline">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnQDW-NMaRs</span></span>
When Warner Brothers made "This Is The Army" into a technicolor motion picture in 1943, Berlin insisted that there be a scene in which Kate herself re-created her radio introduction of God Bless America. She sang it complete with the seldom-heard introduction verse.
<object width="425" height="350"> <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/TnQDW-NMaRs&feature=related"></param> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param> <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/TnQDW-NMaRs&feature=related" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"> </embed></object>
