Reflections on Kate Smith and Patriotism

Kate Smith (1907-1986)

I have been, since at least when I was 12 years old, a collector of vintage recordings.  Back when I began to collect this great music (primarily vintage big band and early jazz), I listened to a radio show that was broadcast on WBT-AM out of Charlotte, NC, on Sunday nights, which actually inspired me to begin the massive music collection I have today.  During seasons such as the Fourth of July or Memorial Day, Henry Boggan (who was the DJ of the show then) would often play two very iconic patriotic recordings together - one of them was Battle Hymn of the Republic, which was recorded in 1949 by Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians, and the other was God Bless America by Kate Smith.  To this day, despite how disgusted I am with our society as a whole as radical left-leaning activists attempt to flush our history down the toilet because it "hurts their feelings," (I actually think it is more than that - these people were too stupid to pay attention in school, probably failing history to begin with, and in order to compensate for their own stupidity they have taken on social activism to revise it to suit their whims), both of these vintage patriotic recordings stir in me the reason why I am blessed to have been born and raised in a nation where I can be the person I am supposed to be without being suppressed, persecuted, and otherwise silenced for my convictions.  Many so-called "progressives" today see this freedom as a threat - they want to manipulate, control, and run into the ground our culture, and they will try to find ways to eliminate the freedom of conviction that people with differing views have.  I went on that rant, as recently Kate Smith herself is now under siege by these same morons, and being she has passed on over 33 years ago now, it is utterly ridiculous how these self-appointed "social justice warriors" want to silence anything that they feel disputes their own narrative.  And, that is why I am writing today. 

Although I love Kate Smith's recording of God Bless America, what really made me a great admirer of her talent was a live radio broadcast she did in the early 1940s in which she sang a beautiful rendition of When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain.  To this day, that song still stirs a great emotion in me, as it hearkens back to a time when talent and artistry meant something in popular music - much of what passes for "music" today is in reality garbage, especially ironically if the "woke" leftist crowd seems to like it; that alone is reason to stay away from it.  Pop music today has not only gotten more tasteless, but it is either so canned and artificial or so lewd and nasty, that to be honest, it astounds me that people still listen to the crap.  The same can be said of art, architecture, movies, etc.   Kate Smith's talent, however, hearkens to an era when quality in entertainment assured its immortality, at least until recently.  Today, someone like Kate Smith would not win an American Idol or Voice audition (which is actually a blessing rather than a curse!), nor would she win a Grammy for a record (much of Kate Smith's recorded library was created before the Grammys even came into existence anyway), but for pure talent, she would outshine Katy Perry or Miley Cyrus any day.   Back in that day, you didn't have tone-deaf idiots such as Simon Cowell making or breaking the artistic aspirations of performers - if you wanted to make your mark on the stage or on radio, the way to do it was simple; if you were a singer, you were often "grandfathered in" by a big band of some sort, as Frank Sinatra was by both Harry James and Tommy Dorsey and the actress Betty Hutton was by pianist/bandleader Vincent Lopez.  Even the great Bing Crosby started out as a boy vocalist with Paul Whiteman's orchestra in the late 1920s.   On occasion, however, there were those rare talents who were able to transcend that entry point and they achieved almost immediate stardom, and Kate Smith was in that rare club.  Now this did not mean that Kate Smith didn't record with big bands, as I have several very fine recordings she sang on with Guy Lombardo and others, but her career didn't start as a girl singer in a band - she was, rather, discovered by then Columbia A&R man Ted Collins, who put her on record for the first time in 1930 and then worked with her for many decades thereafter.  Along with Nat "King" Cole, Al Jolson, and Bessie Smith, Kate Smith was a legend who stood out on her own from the beginning.  That alone tells you the type of person Kate Smith was as a talent.

Kate Smith was not much to look at either then - she was a hefty gal whose body was as big as her voice, but by all indications, her heart was also big as well.  In later life, she became a convert to the Catholic faith and was devout the rest of her life, even serving as what we would call a cantor in the Church today.  She also was a strong advocate for morality in entertainment, and like many great artists of her generation, she was distressed with what much pop culture had started to deteriorate into later in her life.  I still recall when she died in 1986 - that same year we lost a lot of great legends, as within months of each other Kate, Rudy Vallee, and Benny Goodman had all passed on.  When I heard the news, it was that summer when I was sitting up at my grandmother's house in Rowlesburg, WV, and a report came on TV about Kate Smith's passing.  It was a rough time for me then anyway, and hearing about the loss of some major icons of early American entertainment was depressing.  However, I was solaced by the fact that many fine recordings of her work still were around, and I had some of them in my own record collection.  So, after almost 33 years after her passing, why is she being so attacked now by a bunch of leftist pansies?  

The controversy started over one of her recordings that some dumb young Millennial found on YouTube or something had a song of Kate Smith's that mentioned the word "Darkie" or something, and of course these ding-dongs, who otherwise didn't even know who Kate Smith was as many of them were born after she passed away, went on this crusade against her supposed "racist legacy."  We have seen this nonsense before - the same crowd who wanted to remove statues, who wanted to take the Christmas classic Baby It's Cold Outside off the air because it supposedly promoted date rape, and also the same morons who want to ban people from enjoying steaks for dinner were also behind this as well.  As mentioned, the loudest squawks are coming from people who are in their 20s and 30s and as mentioned, would probably have never heard of Kate Smith before this, and their squawks are accentuated by enabling old "Boomers" who called music like Kate Smith "square" back in the days when many of them were getting stoned out of their minds with LSD.  Their rebellion against Kate Smith then was due to the fact it was music their parents and grandparents liked, but now they have found new reasons to attack it, and they have an army of young mindless Millennial minions to enforce it.  What is ironic about this is that Katy Perry can be a complete slut on stage, not to mention the recent antics of Miley Cyrus and Lady GaGa, yet that is "socially acceptable."    It also makes me wonder who they will be going after next - perhaps it will be Al Jolson because he performed in "Blackface."  There are days I am embarrassed for our culture, and this is one of them - ironically though, it is the perennial Kate Smith recording of God Bless America that reminds me that it is not America that is the problem, but rather the SJWs who are trying to eradicate America's (and indeed Western Civilization's) legacy.  So, what is the call to action we can have against this insanity?  Let me propose an idea.

Liberals these days - especially the young Millennial "woke" bunch of lunatics - are all about "safe spaces" and suppressing anything that shakes their comfort zones up.  Maybe it is time we utilize that, as there are a lot more of us normal folks than there are of them - I think, for instance, there are some places where garbage such as Katy Perry should be disposed of in the sewer where it belongs, and instead efforts need to be enacted to preserve good music like Kate Smith instead.  My house already is a Katy Perry-free zone, and it is about to become more so, and I intend to expand that zone too.  Katy Perry is a no-talent slut who got where she is because she is talented at one thing - performing oral sex on record producers to advance her career, which she openly brags about.  In contrast, Kate Smith had a career of over 50 years that showcased her God-given talent, and she is what America is about.  It is time to call radio stations and TV cable channels to get the smut (and sluts like Miley Cyrus and Katy Perry) out of our hearing and viewing range and to shut them down.  While we're at it, let's ship Justin Bieber's worthless arse back to Canada where it belongs, and ban his records too.  Then, we can go after rap, the "drug/thug" culture it promotes, as well as all this LGBT crap that has been shoved down our throats - we don't want it, and we shouldn't have to be subjected to that.  In a culture where "getting offended" seems to be a civil right, it is time for the rest of us to exercise that right and say "NO!" to the Hollywood hacks who are producing that garbage.  If they continue to go after Kate Smith's legacy or anyone else, they can count on a fight from me against the crap they are trying to replace her with.  In short, it is time to let the hacks know enough is enough!

I have ranted enough for one day, but suffice to say, there is little doubt that Western Civilization is under attack from godless, morally bankrupt forces who want to take over our society and turn it into a vision of hell.  As long as good people live on this earth though, we don't need to allow them to do that, and boundaries need to be drawn.  And, it starts first with the Philadelphia Flyers today, who perpetrated this insult to Kate Smith's memory.  Thank you for allowing me to rant, and will see you next time.