This is the story of how Woody occupied Berlin.<\/p>\n
It all started in 1893, when Isadore Baline arrived in the United States from Russia.\u00a0 He worked as a singing waiter in New York, until World War 1, when he enlisted in the army.\u00a0 While stationed at Camp Upton, he staged a musical review for the troops that included several upbeat, patriotic tunes.\u00a0 After the war, as he was becoming a famous songwriter, his music publisher misprinted his name \u201cIrving Berlin,\u201d and the name stuck.\u00a0 In 1938, with war threatening again in Europe, he was asked by Kate Smith to write her a song to perform at the World\u2019s Fair.\u00a0 Berlin pulled out one of his Camp Upton tunes, and reworked the lyrics.\u00a0 On November 10, 1938, Kate Smith stepped up to the microphone and, for the first time, performed \u201cGod Bless America.\u201d\u00a0 Everybody loved it.<\/p>\n
Well, almost everybody.\u00a0 Woodrow Wilson Guthrie was born in Texas in 1912, and spent his youth as a traveling folk singer in the dustbowl of the Great Depression.\u00a0 When he heard Berlin\u2019s song, he thought it was simplistic and jingoistic, and insensitive to the suffering of everyday folks.\u00a0 He asked himself, \u201cIn the squares of the city, in the shadow of a steeple; by the relief office, I’d seen my people. As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking: is this land made for you and me?\u201d\u00a0 Over the next 2 years, he developed his idea into a 6-verse populist manifesto.\u00a0 In 1940, Woody Guthrie stepped up to the microphone at a benefit for poor farm workers, and performed, \u201cThis Land is Your Land.\u201d Not everyone was pleased; he was branded a communist.<\/p>\n
Since that time, Berlin\u2019s sunny song-and-dance and Guthrie\u2019s social criticism have been woven like competing threads through the fabric of American music.\u00a0 The optimistic, prosperous 50\u2019s were filled with colorful Berlin-inspired Broadway musicals; the rock and roll era was defined by the gritty commentary of \u00a0\u201cWoody\u2019s Children,\u201d from Bob Dylan to Bruce Springsteen to Billy Bragg.<\/p>\n
Then, when America was attacked in 2001, the two songs were brought together again.\u00a0 On the afternoon of 9\/11, Congress sang \u201cGod Bless America\u201d on the steps of the Capitol, while in schools and parks across the country, folks sang \u201cThis Land is Your Land.\u201d \u00a0And just a year later, when the Library of Congress established the National Recording Registry, the two songs were inducted together in the first class of recordings to be added.<\/p>\n
Irving Berlin was a founding member of ASCAP and the consummate music industry titan.\u00a0 He lived a long and prosperous life and died in 1989, after donating the royalties of his song to the Boy Scouts.\u00a0 Woody Guthrie worked the back roads and died much younger – in 1967 from complications of Huntington\u2019s Disease – never knowing how influential he would become.\u00a0 But you\u2019ll hear his legacy this weekend on rock and folk radio stations across the country; tomorrow is his 100th<\/sup> birthday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is the story of how Woody occupied Berlin. It all started in 1893, when Isadore Baline arrived in the United States from Russia.\u00a0 He worked as a singing waiter in New York, until World War 1, when he enlisted in the army.\u00a0 While stationed at Camp Upton, he staged…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[503,631,1238,1356],"class_list":["post-405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-7","tag-god-bless-america","tag-irving-berlin","tag-this-land-is-your-land","tag-woody-guthrie"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}