45 RPM RECORDS
https://youtu.be/jKlIwvKYIzI In March 1949, RCA Victor released 7- inch 45 revolutions per minute (RPM) records as smaller, higher-fidelity replacements for the 78 rpm shellac discs. The first 45 rpms were monaural and recorded on both sides. Almost all 45 rpms were...
read more
Top Songs of 1948
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izaQaJSR-_Y Here is a list of the top 100 songs of 1948
read more
Brigadoon
Brigadoon, a musical by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, premiered on Broadway in 1947 and ran for 581 performances. A 1954 film version starred Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse, and a 1966 television version starred Robert Goulet and Peter Falk. In the show,...
read more
Voice of America Calls USSR
Established in 1942 for Allied propaganda broadcasts during WWII, the Voice of America (VOA) continued broadcasts after the war aimed mostly at Western Europe. In September 1947, VOA began broadcasts aimed at the Soviet Union with: “Hello! This is New...
read more
Muddy Waters
Growing up in Mississippi, McKinley Morganfield (1913 – 1983) played Delta blues in the style of Son House and Robert Johnson. Later, performing as Muddy Waters, he was recognized as one of the original modern Chicago blues musicians of the late 1940s - early 1950s....
read more
Annie Get Your Gun
Annie Get Your Gun, a 1946 Broadway show with music and lyrics by Irving Berlin and a book by the brother-sister team of Dorothy and Herbert Fields, was a fictionalized account of the life of Annie Oakley, a 19th and early 20th-century sharpshooter who starred in...
read more
Dunkirk
After seeing the new movie DUNKIRK directed by Christopher Nolan last night, I wanted to recommend it to you readers. Like the top film critics, I found this film technically flawless and emotionally extremely powerful. The film's soundtrack by Hans Zimmer kept me on...
read more
R.I.P. Glenn Miller
Alton Glenn Miller (1904 – 1944) was a big band star in the American swing era whose recordings were best-sellers from 1939 to 1943. Traveling to entertain U.S. troops in France in December 1944, his single-engine UC-64 Norseman disappeared in bad weather over the...
read more
Home For Christmas
Ironically, Bing Crosby’s elegant Toluca Lake mansion was virtually destroyed by fire. The culprit was none other than the family Christmas tree. ______________________ Want to hear the top hits of 1943? Check this out: Jukebox 1943 ...
read more
Fred Waring
Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians Chorus and Band was formed in 1918 at Pennsylvania State University. While the 1925 song Collegiate was probably their best known song, other novelty songs were I've Never Seen a Straight Banana and I Wonder How I Look When I'm...
read more
It Don’t Mean a Thing
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (1899 – 1974) was a key figure in American jazz composition and performance. A pianist and bandleader, Ellington travelled throughout Europe in the 1930s and gained national prominence in the USA with his orchestra's appearances at the...
read more
Die Große Liebe
Die große Liebe (The Great Love), which premiered in 1942, became the most commercially successful film in the history of the Nazi Germany. From the film's musical score: "Davon geht die Welt nicht unter" and "Ich weiß, es wird einmal ein Wunder gescheh'n"...
read more
American Music WWII
Unlike songs popular in America during WWI , many WWII songs focused more on romance and strength instead of patriotism. Particularly popular, were singers included Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, the Andrews Sisters and Bing Crosby. Listen on YouTube to these popular...
read more
Umi Yukaba
This rather eerie military song (軍歌 gunka) Umi Yukaba 海行かば was based on an ancient 和歌 waka poem by Ōtomo no Yakamochi and put to music by Nobutoki Kiyoshi in 1937. Popular throughout WWII, Umi Yukaba was sung by departing Kamikaze pilots (神風) during the last stages...
read more
Leningrad 7th Symphony
In the summer of 1941, shortly after the German army began the long siege of his city Leningrad, the Soviet Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich began work on his Seventh Symphony. After composing several movements, Shostakovich and his family, along with the...
read more
Wünschkonzert Request
During WWII German radio hosted the Wünschkonzert für die Wehrmacht, playing music requested by German soldiers. The 1940 motion picture Wünschkonzert , seen by over 20 milllion viewers, used a blend of fiction, newsreel and documentary footage to tell the classic...
read more
INFERNO
I am currently reading this excellent book by Max Hastings. Not only is it detailed, balanced and well-referenced; it is superb writing. Before dawn next morning, "a warm, damp, rather hazy day," American and Japanese pilots breakfasted. The Yorktown's men favoured...
read more
Jazz in the Third Reich
Jazz music, very popular in the Weimar Republic, came under attack from right wing conservatives in the Third Reich. Despite efforts to eliminate fremdländisch (alien) music by Hitler and his followers, jazz survived early efforts at prohibition. Popular demand for...
read more
Smoke on the Water
There will be a sad day coming For the foes of all mankind They must answer to the people And it’s troubling their mind Everybody who must fear them Will rejoice on that great day When the powers of dictators Shall be taken all away [Chorus:] There’ll be smoke on the...
read more
USO WWII
In 1941, Congress chartered the USO (United Service Organizations) to provide programs, services and live entertainment to United States troops and their families. Not an official government agency, the USO relied on private contributions, goods and services from...
read more
Taps
The American military tune "Taps," sounded at dusk by bugle or trumpet, is also played at military funerals. Like its German and Imperial Japanese counterparts, it evokes melancholy and tribute to valorous fallen comrades.
read more
Comrade-in-arms
All nations glorify death in combat, but Imperial Japan probably more than most. For example, most American movies made during WWII depicted heroic US soldiers defeating the enemy (think John Wayne). But Imperial Japanese movies made during wartime (e.g. Chocolate...
read more
Ich Hatt’ Einen Kameraden
This stirring hymn to a fallen comrade, written by German poet Ludwig Uhland in 1809, is still used today by the German military. Original German Text English Translation Ich hatt' einen Kameraden, Einen bessern findst du nit. Die Trommel schlug zum Streite, Er ging...
read more
Gene Autry – USAAF
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVCjMTf0GYs GeneAutry.com - Gene Autry: Flight Officer. In July 1942, during a live broadcast of his radio show Melody Ranch, singing cowboy movie star Gene Autry was inducted into the Army Air Forces as a Technical Sergeant. Already...
read more
Satchmo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xj_9sXa4wU Louis Armstrong (1901-1971), known as Satchmo (perhaps because he had a "satchel mouth") became prominent in the 1920s as an American jazz trumpeter, gravelly-voiced jazz and scat singer. With charismatic stage presence and...
read more