R.I.P. Doris Day
https://youtu.be/D0MtzQDltr0 Doris Day, the freckle-faced movie actress whose irrepressible personality and golden voice made her America’s top box-office star in the early 1960s, died on Monday at her home in Carmel Valley, Calif. She was 97. ~ NY Times May 13, 2019...
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Popular Music
https://youtu.be/Oi6oSjmDV4U https://youtu.be/j11rwc6Sf4o
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People’s Republic of China
Song of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army (PVA) Forward! Forward! Forward!Our army faces towards the sun,Over the ground of our Motherland,Carrying the hope of our nation, We are an invincible power!We are the sons of peasantry,We are the arms of the people! Always...
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SO LONESOME I COULD CRY
Hear that lonesome whippoorwill He sounds too blue to flyThat means he's lost the will to live I'm so lonesome I could cryDid you ever see a night so slow As time goes draggin' byThe moon just went behind the cloudsTo hide its face and cryThe silence of...
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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...
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Top Songs of 1948
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izaQaJSR-_Y Here is a list of the top 100 songs of 1948
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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,...
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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...
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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....
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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 ...
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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...
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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...
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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"...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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.
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