[78-L] The debut broadcast of God Bless America

[Cary Ginell]

As I hear it, the line at the end is "From the green fields IN Virginia" (not "of") and "to the gold fields out in Nome" (not "cold fields"). 
Thanks for sharing this, Mike.

Cary Ginell

> Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2011 01:30:51 -0400
> From: mbiel at mbiel.com
> To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
> CC: waldenhughes at yesterdayusa.com; lgsinger at sbcglobal.net; l.biel at verizon.net; wmurphy65 at sbcglobal.net; kenkurtz at windstream.net; bstenor at yahoo.com; rocdoc139a at yahoo.com
> Subject: [78-L] The debut broadcast of God Bless America
> 
> I don't remember seeing any notes that in May someone had posted the 
> actual Kate Smith Nov 10, 1938 broadcast premiere of God Bless America, 
> but now after the discussions we had on 78-L when a lacquer of the 
> broadcast went up on oy vey and didn't sell for the huge amount, we can 
> finally hear at least this portion of the broadcast.
> 
> Note two VERY important changes to the lyrics.  Are they in the sheet 
> music?  Are they in other recordings including some of Kate's 
> broadcasts?  In the introduction verse -- which she didn't sing on the 
> record and most broadcasts -- there is the line "Let us all be grateful 
> that we're far from there", which is referring to Europe 1938, of 
> course.  The line is usually heard as "Let us all be grateful for a land 
> so fair".  This is very significant.  Is there any documentation as to 
> objections to this line?
> 
> The other major change is in the first two lines of the final repeat of 
> the last lines.  "From the green fields of Virginia, To the cold (??) 
> fields out in Nome (???)  (That's the best I can figure it out to be!!)
> 
> This is a dub, and is probably a 78 excerpt.  You will notice that the 
> applause fades out before the surface noise.  That surface noise is very 
> crisp, leading me to feel that the dub we are hearing has all of the 
> sound we are ever going to get out of this disc.  Any loss of highs is 
> either in the original recording or in the playback of that original to 
> make this dub.  I do detect another set of surface noise in the early 
> part of the recording, its frequency range is much reduced.
> 
> Also, notice a touch of feedback near the end, also that Kate rushes the 
> end slightly and has backed away a bit too far from the microphone -- or 
> else the engineer was scared and potted it down to far too early.
> 
> Here's the URL.  any comments?
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1rKQReqJZg&feature=related
> 
> Note that several other videos saying that they are the 1938 
> introduction are, of course, the recreation from the movie "This Is The 
> Army" which we now is not quite an accurate re-creation!!
> 
> Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.coim
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