Kate Smith

  • Born: May 1, 1907
  • Birthplace: Greenville, Virginia
  • Died: June 17, 1986
  • Place of death: Raleigh, North Carolina

With her powerful but warm voice and friendly personality, Smith appealed to stage, radio, and television audiences. Her rendition of “God Bless America” made it an unforgettable classic.

The Life

Kathryn Elizabeth Smith’s parents were William H. Smith, the owner of the Capitol News Agency in Washington, DC, and Charlotte Smith, a homemaker. Smith entertained World War I troops as a child, appeared in vaudeville by age twelve, and, despite family objections, launched a show business career. She was immediately successful as a singer and dancer, performing in New York productions of Honeymoon Lane (1926), Hit the Deck (1929), and Flying High (1930). She appeared in at least eight films between 1930 and 1943. In her memoirs, Living in a Great Big Way (1938) and Upon My Lips a Song (1960), however, she reveals her heartache when she realized that she was being used as a foil for stage comics who ridiculed her heavy weight, as did some reviewers and cartoonists.

She was reassured in 1930 when she met Joseph Martin (“Ted”) Collins, who managed her career until his death in 1964. He realized that her weight, her traditional values, and her distaste for tobacco, alcohol, and nightclubs, while scorned on Broadway, would appeal to a general American audience, so he steered her toward radio and records. Under his guidance, she began her first regular radio series in 1931. In a few years, she became the highest-paid woman in radio. In 1938 she began a talk show, Kate Smith “Speaking Her Mind,” covering subjects ranging from cooking to age discrimination. This evolved into Kate Smith Speaks, a five-day-per-week, fifty-two-week-per-year broadcast. In 1942, she was ranked with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and actress Helen Hayes as the three best-known women in America. By the time her radio career ended in 1959, she had broadcast more than fifteen thousand times. Her television series, which ran from 1950 to 1954, followed by another brief series in 1960, specials, and many guest appearances, validated her belief that she could be judged by talent, not appearance.

With her warm conversational style, she was welcomed by audiences that responded generously to her appeals for charity and to her World War II bond marathons, during which she raised about $600 million for the war effort. Her many concerts began with a triumphant 1963 Carnegie Hall appearance. Her health failing, she last appeared in public in 1982, the year she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Smith died of complications from diabetes in 1986.

The Music

Smith could not read music, but her powerful untrained contralto was flawlessly pitched and controlled. In her autobiography, she describes herself as a vehicle for the composer, refusing to add individual touches. Consequently, composers such as Irving Berlin encouraged her to introduce their music. As she describes, she first listened to a song until she understood what the composer wanted. Next, she worked on pitch, rhythm, and enunciation, finally capturing the mood of the song. Understanding her audience’s mix of generations, she insisted her broadcasts and concerts mingle old songs with new.

Early Works. Although her career lasted until the 1970s, Smith was most popular during the 1930s and 1940s. Songs she introduced or simply sang generally made a profit through sheet music and record sales, even if they did not become hits. Smith’s first recorded songs, hits from the successful Honeymoon Lane, were released in 1930. Early hits included “River, Stay ’Way from My Door,” “The Last Time I Saw Paris,” “The White Cliffs of Dover,” and “Don’t Fence Me In.” Her appearances at New York’s Palace and Capitol Theaters (1929–33) were successes; she took a vaudeville production, The Sewanee Review, on the road in 1933–34; and, during World War II, she toured with her cast to entertain military and industrial workers.

“When the Moon Comes over the Mountain.”Adapted from a poem she had written as a girl, this became her first major hit after Collins hired Harry Woods to provide melody and Howard Johnson to add lyrics. The repetition of sustained “m” and “o” sounds emphasizes the song’s dreaminess. Its wistful depiction of a dreary life redeemed by memories of past joy resonated with her Depression-era and World War II audiences. Smith sang this, her lifelong theme song, on her first series radio broadcast on March 17, 1931, and she recorded it twice in 1931. She sang it in her only feature film, Hello, Everybody! (1933), and she crooned a few bars in Paramount Pictures’ The Big Broadcast (1933), where she appeared with Bing Crosby and other radio stars, and with Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

“God Bless America.”As the threat of war increased, Smith wanted a new patriotic song for her November, 1938, Armistice Day (later Veterans Day), broadcast. She approached Irving Berlin, who had written “God Bless America” for a World War I Army show but had not used it. He revised it, she introduced it, and the song was so successful that Berlin and Smith had to oppose efforts to make it the new national anthem. Others recorded it, but Smith’s version remained definitive. Her ample body and rich, powerful voice did justice to the bountiful landscape that Berlin portrays, while his personification of America as “she” preeminently suited the maternal image of Smith as singer, both strong female presences but in need of protection and guidance and both identified with home. The song can be sung as hymn, march, or ballad; Smith’s version stressed optimism and determination. Berlin and Smith donated all profits from the song to the Boy and Girl Scouts of America.

Musical Legacy

In radio’s early years, broadcasters sought high-culture status by presenting, with flowery, concert-stage-style introductions, operatically trained singers. Smith’s simple style, which seemed like that of a friend, cut through this, opening the way for a generation of singers such as Dinah Shore and Doris Day. Smith was among the first American popular singers to disregard artificial musical boundaries, performing hymns, spirituals, jazz, blues, comedy songs, country, sentimental ballads, show music, and even opera. Her most lasting legacy, however, was her selling of “God Bless America” to the public. It created a wide demand for records and sheet music, and both the Republican and Democratic Parties adopted it as their official song for the 1940 presidential campaign. More than sixty years later, in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, DC, the song was heard everywhere, its title written on placards set in lawns across America. Cementing Smith’s legacy, music stores reported an increased demand for Smith’s recorded version.

However, in 2019, parts of her legacy came into question when it was discovered that some of the songs Smith had performed contained lyrics considered by many to be racist, insensitive, and offensive, particularly in modern times. In light of this discovery, the organizations behind the professional hockey team the Philadelphia Flyers and the professional baseball team the New York Yankees announced that Smith's rendition of "God Bless America" would no longer be played at games. For the Flyers, the song had long been part of the team's traditions and was considered lucky, with Smith having performed it at a handful of games, including during the Stanley Cup final in which the Flyers ultimately took the trophy in 1974. The organization additionally made the decision to cover a statue of Smith that had been placed outside of the team's home arena in 1987, and it was later removed. The Yankees, meanwhile, had been one of the teams to regularly play "God Bless America" since the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Bibliography

Hayes, Richard K. Kate Smith: A Biography, with a Discography, Filmography, and List of Stage Appearances. McFarland, 1995. Lengthy biography, including broadcast information and bibliography.

Mather, Victor. "Yankees and Flyers Will Stop Playing Kate Smith After Discovering Racist Songs." The New York Times, 19 Apr. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/04/19/sports/kate-smith-new-york-yankees-philadelphia-flyers.html. Accessed 2 May 2019.

Nachman, Gerald. Raised on Radio. Pantheon Books, 1998. Overview of best-known radio series and stars, including Smith.

Pitts, Michael R. Kate Smith: A Bio-Bibliography. Greenwood Press, 1988. Annotated bibliography, annotated filmography, and list of stage appearances, including comments by newspaper reviewers.

Schaden, Chuck. Chuck Schaden’s Conversations with the Stars of the Golden Age of Radio. Nostalgia Press, 2003. A 1971 interview with Smith captures her tone.

Smith, Kate. God Bless America: Tin Pan Alley Goes to War. UP of Kentucky, 2002. Explores the government’s effort to generate morale-lifting World War II songs. Smith provides an overview of popular music from the 1920s to 1945 and offers a context for Smith’s popularity.

Smith, Kate. Living in a Great Big Way. Blue Ribbon Books, 1938. Smith’s first autobiography.

Smith, Kate. Upon My Lips a Song. Funk & Wagnells, 1960. Smith recounts the events of her life.

Principal Recordings

albums:Kate Smith Sings Folk Songs, 1958; The Sweetest Sounds, 1964; How Great Thou Art, 1965; The Kate Smith Anniversary Album, 1966; The Kate Smith Christmas Album, 1966; Kate Smith Today, 1966.

singles: “River, Stay ’Way from My Door,” 1931; “That’s Why Darkies Were Born,” 1931; “When the Moon Comes over the Mountain,” 1931; “The Last Time I Saw Paris,” 1940; “The Woodpecker Song,” 1940; “Rose O’Day,” 1941; “The White Cliffs of Dover,” 1941; “I Don’t Want to Walk Home Without You,” 1942; “Don’t Fence Me In,” 1944; “There Goes That Song Again,” 1944; “Seems Like Old Times,” 1946; “Now Is the Hour,” 1947; “God Bless America,” 1968.