Monday, February 15, 2016

Happy Presidents Day, 2016!



To celebrate Presidents Day (or is it Presidents' Day?), here are five 78s from my collection that do the job.  All ripped and edited by me using MAGIX Audio Cleaner MX.

George M. Cohan's Father of the Land We Love was written in 1932 (the sheet music states, "To Commemorate the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Birth of George Washington"--see comments); Lee Sanford's Lincoln Centennial March in 1909; and William H. Woodin's Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, the same year Woodin served as Roosevelt's Secretary of the Treasury!  How about that?

To the zip file: Presidents Day 2016

PLAYLIST

Lincoln Centennial March (Sanford)--United States Marine Band, Dir. Wm. H. Santelmann, 1909.
Father of the Land We Love (Cohan)--Robert Hood Bowers & His Orch., 1932.
Medley of Washingtonian Songs--Robert Hood Bowers & His Orch., 1932.
National Melodies--Brunswick Military Band, 1933.
Franklin D. Roosevelt--March (Woodin)--Brunswick Military Band, 1933.


Lee

6 comments:

garrido said...

the robin hood bowers 78s are my favorites, you have no idea how pleasant it is to hear these 78s in mint condition (practically) I am so glad you came up with these prime examples of american political music

Anonymous said...

Lee
Thanks for posting these. I have a reprint of the sheet music for "Father of the Land We Love," but I've never heard a performance of it (apart from my own "singing".0 It might interest you that the sheet music describes the song as having been written “To Commemorate the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Birth of George Washington . . . Written for the American People,” followed by a facsimile of Cohan's signature.

Incidentally, Cohan's publishing company (The George M. Cohan Music Publishing Company) was located at 1776 Broadway -- no doubt an address chosen deliberately.

Have you ever heard the recordings Cohan made in 1904? Most of them can be found at www.archive.org. Well worth everyone's attention.

Best wishes,
Philip

Lee Hartsfeld said...

Garrido--Glad you enjoyed! Thanks for the nice words on the condition (MAGIX's noise filtering deserves all the credit).

Philip--That's very cool information--thanks! I'll add the anniversary note to my post when I get a moment. (Moments are hard to come by lately....)

Lee

Lee Hartsfeld said...

Oh, and no, I haven't listened to the Cohan recordings. I'll have to do that. I've heard recordings by Cohan, Jr. but not his dad. That site is highly amazing.

Anonymous said...

One Cohan song which I've always loved was an obscure thing called "You Won't Do Any Business if You Haven't Got a Band." It's a kind of "Inside Baseball" comic song about the problems of theatre managers. Cohan recorded it in 1904 -- seemingly his only recording session -- but Archive.org doesn't have it. You can find it, though on Youtube. I There was once an LP documentary about Cohan which included most of the 1904 recordings, as well as performances by other singers of his time, including Caruso. That LP also featured a late performance of "Over There" by Cohan with an orchestra. (By the sound of it from some kind of public event.)

Incidentally, in the excellent movie "Yankee Doodle Dandy", the comedy song "Cohan" (played by Jimmy Cagney) sings as Franklin D. Roosevelt was by Rodgers and Hart, though I don't think the movie credited them.

Best,

Philip

Bill from Illinois said...


Lee, thanks very much for these -- I'm looking forward to listening. I haven't visited for quite a while -- way too long -- and it's great to be back here. Your posts never fail to fascinate.

All the best.