A Salute to the Golden Age of American Popular Music

We salute the music from Broadway, Hollywood, New Orleans, Tin Pan Alley and the "melody makers;" i.e. the bands and singers that brought the music to us via the radio, recordings and live events in the period from the 1920's to the 1960's. This is the golden period of Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Richard Rodgers, Larry Hart, Oscar Hammerstein, Johnny Mercer, Hoagy Carmichael, Jimmy Van Heusen, Harold Arlen, Harry Warren, etc.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Britain's Vera Lynn celebrates 95th birthday!


Yesterday was the birthday of one of the most popular singers during the Second World War...Dame Vera Lynn, DBE (born Vera Margaret Welch arrived on 20 March 1917). Lynn is an English singer-songwriter and actress whose musical recordings and performances were enormously popular with the Allied troops and the Brits on the homefront.

During the war she toured Egypt, India and Burma, giving outdoor concerts for the troops. She became known, and is still referred to, as "The Forces' Sweetheart"; the songs most associated with her are "We'll Meet Again", "There'll Always Be an England," and "The White Cliffs of Dover."

She remained popular after the war, appearing on radio and television in the UK and the United States and recording such hits as "Auf Wiederseh'n Sweetheart" and "My Son, My Son".

In 2009 she became the oldest living artist to make it to No. 1 on the British album chart, at the age of 92.

She has devoted much time and energy to charity work connected with ex-servicemen, disabled children and breast cancer. She is still held in great affection by veterans of the Second World War and in 2000 was named the Briton who best exemplified the spirit of the twentieth century. (Edited from Wiki)

Listen to Vera Lynn's classic recording of "The White Cliffs of Dover"....it was a number one hit on both sides of the Atlantic. Bandleader Kay Kyser's version was a big hit in the US following our entrance into the war in late 1941.(Britain entered the war in 1939.)

 

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