Hes going over there to do his share when alexander takes him ragtime band to france hell capture everyone and take them one by one the ragtime tunes will put the germans in a trans theyll sing hip hip hooray theyll get so excited theyll come over the top two steps back to berlin with a hip and a hop hitler will know when alexander takes his ragtime band to france now, i came in here and rehearsed. So imagine how bad it would be if i hadnt rehearsed. That song obviously comes once weve gone into the war. Let me fill in the pieces broadly, and then as the songs come up, ill place them for you. We get that berlin song called lets all be americans now which comes soon after a group of songs that were in response to a specific incident. That is what really galvanizes american patriotism. What really galvanizes american support for the allies, you know what the event was . The sinking of the lusitania. In the months after the sinking, there are dozens of songs about the sinking of the lusit
Endited. Please welcome mavis staples. And moderating the Panel Discussion today as a catalyst for social change, hes the executive director of the Grammy Museum in los angeles. Noted music authorities, specifically on music in the 1960s, and author of more than a dozen books. His most recent, this land is your land, Woody Guthrie and the journey of an american folk song. Frequent lecturer at the white house and performance at the white house. Please welcome bob santelli. Thank you for doing this, its an honor to have you here. The last time we got a chance to sit like this we were at the white house talking about soul music and the importance of music in the Civil Rights Movement. Yes, we were, and it was around the same time. So its getting to be a habit. Next year at this time ill look for you. The staples singers are generally recognized in Music History as one of the seminole groups of American History, particularly in the post world war ii period. Yourself and sisters and pops, o
Are a few mother songs, mothers proud that youre in uniform, sonny, that sort of thing, that unfortunately had not survived. The songs are the love songs of the war are largely about a couple, whether married or not, separated. So the emotions of warfare in song are in the love songs, and youll see this a little bit later, are about separation, parting, loneliness, longing, the hope of return. You find those in the love songs of world war i, and you find them in the love songs of world war ii. And those three wars, civil, i and ii, are really the wars where there is a large body of song because there was a sense of the nation engaged, that there was not certainly in the wars since world war ii. There arent a lot of songs about korea. And im not being snotty. It was a different kind of war. The people were not engaged by it. In vietnam, you had some songs, but theyre songs in which two groups are warring with one another. Give peace a chance, and whats the im an oaky from muskokee. Iraq
Blum, an investigative journalist and author of the new New York Times bestseller become become as well as many other great books. He is currently a contributing editor at vanity fair. While at the New York Times he was twice nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. Several of his books were nonfiction best sellers including, among others i pledge allegiance, the true story of the walkers, an american spy family that was turned into a great mini series on cbs, perhaps some of you watched it in the past. Gang land how the fbi broke the mob in 1993. The eve of destruction. The untold story of the yom kippur war in 2003. American lightning terror of mystery and the birth of hollywood and the crime of the century in 2008. A floor of heaven, a true tale of the last frontier and the yukon gold rush in 2011. I should also mention that Warner Brothers is preparing a film of dark invasion starring Bradley Cooper as tom, the hero of the book. Please welcome, howard blum. 4 lu
First of all, to apologies. Its slightly weird to be writing a book called the men who united the states during its time when given that reason struggles and washington is seems more disunited than it has been for a long time. I know all good people turn off their cell phones, im going to play you a short clip of music at the end. I just hope that nobody telephones me during this presentation. Like root of giuliani. I will feel like rudolph giuliani. To do is tieo try you bit more of the background of this book, which is a big sort of plum pudding of an affair. Once a tell you how it all came into being, pluck one or two of those plums from the putting pudding. The background, quite a complex story. You might be able to tell im english. I fell in love with this country quite literally when i first arrived here in 1962, a student hitchhiking. I basically met at a science fair in london, i was a delegate to a schoolboy science fair, i met a young canadian woman, i was 17 years old. , and