Rosemary Clooney Sings "God Bless America"
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Artist:
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Album:Rosemary Clooney: The Last Concert
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Track:Irving Berlin: God Bless America
It seems appropriate to listen to this performance, the last song ever sung by Rosemary Clooney. Originally the property of Kate Smith, "God Bless America" belongs to everyone. One important detail of this performance is that Clooney sings the seldom heard opening verse. Very few people know that there even is a verse. Kate Smith, I don't think, ever sang this verse. Yet Irving Berlin wrote this very poignantly personal verse which everyone should really pay attention to for it represents the hopes and dreams of everyone. From November 16, 2001, Rosemary Clooney sings with the Honolulu Symphony "Pops" conducted by Matt Catingub, Irving Berlin's "God Bless America."
Comments (4)
I remember these verses, sung when I was in elementary school during the Sputnik/Cold War years. It's nice to finally have the complete version to listen to on this day. I suspect that Adolf Hitler's crowd took an even greater dislike to Irving Berlin for having written this landmark tune.
This song was very popular in November, 2001. Our beleaguered nation was festooned with American flags. More recently a flag in front of your house implies giving Cheney a blank check. I remember as a teenager in the 1960s seeing Kate Smith sing this song on TV, and it seemed that this person, of whom I had never heard, had pushed the most stereotypical aspect of her persona to its logical extreme, a refrigerator physique, vibrato-ridden voice, and a chauvinist song. My father, a fan of the Great American Songbook, hated Irving Berlin, but couldn't recall any of his 2000 songs but this. Later, I bought a CD of Kate Smith's early recordings and acquired a taste for her voice back then. I could even imagine myself riding a bus in 1942, feeling worried about the war and finding guilty solace in her hit version of this song.
Thank you for posting this on this Fourth Of July. Very poignant.
Coincidently...I just saw Matt Catingub with some of the Honolulu Symphony players back up Boz Scaggs in concert last month. Amazing show!
:=)
Wow, I still have goosebumps from hearing this beautiful rendition by the one and only Rosemary Clooney.
I get very emotional when I hear someone singing God Bless America-
correctly- and with much love and pride in their voice.
God bless you, Rosie. You wowed us here on earth. And I just know
that you are wowing them in Heaven!
God BLESS America!