Yesterday I had a temp job for one day in an office putting in data and I was allowed to listen to music, so I brought in my Kate Smith CDs and I must admit I had to laugh quite a bit at how much good press Miss Smith was getting.
All these young people heard her and were saying “Wow is that lady good.” “Man, who is that? She can sure sing.”
Now Smith is before my time, but I love music from the 30s and 40s so of course Kate Smith goes in there. I’m used to people being blown back by Jo Stafford, (My favourite) but it seems funny to me just how many people don’t know Kate Smith.
I can see why they don’t, she’s so “a long time ago,” but I was just wondering if there are any Kate Smith fans here
In Cape May, New Jersey, they have a flag-lowering ceremony each evening run by the local Kiwanis, and they play her version of “God Bless America” during it. She ain’t afraid to give it her all.
It’s sad that so many people today don’t know about Kate Smith. She was one of the most popular entertainers in the U.S. for a couple of decades. I guess everyone is forgotten eventually. . .
Singing styles have changed so much since Kate Smith’s heyday. Singers today have so little restraint, with everything at maximum volume and absurd amounts of melisma. How would “When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain” sound if Mariah Carey sang it?
I was never a fan, I found her bland and sentimental. But there’s no denying she had a set of pipes and knew how to use them. She was all over TV in the 50’s when I was growing up. I preferred Dinah Shore.
Roddy
Her later years, she allowed herself (partially due to an ongoing heart condition) to devolve into a purveyor of “sentimental memories” of older people who had been adults in the war and wanted retro, reminiscent music – but in her prime, she was anything but.
I’ll admit that Dinah Shore really surprised me when I first started listening to her. She was a lot more impressive than I gave her credit for. I can see where people would see Smith as overly patriotic and the like.
Once God Bless America got hot, she was identified with it the rest of her career. I think the TV stations used to sign off with her singing it in front of a flapping flag. Yes TV stations used to sign off.When they came back on , they started with a test pattern.
They signed off with “Dixie” in much of the South, as did the radio stations (at sundown). I do remember Kate Smith being a big deal for my parents in the 60s, too. As in–“Be quiet–it’s Kate Smith!”.
