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"The Freedom Train" August 10, 2012 05:08PM |
Registered: 4 years ago Posts: 120 |
Maybe you really love The Freedom Train -- the super-patriotic-in-intent September 12, 1947, recording Peggy Lee made with Margaret Whiting, Johnny Mercer & The Pied Pipers, Benny Goodman and Paul Weston and His Orchestra – and listen to it frequently. Maybe you play your copy only on the Fourth of July. Or maybe a few listens sometime ago were enough for you, as the song might seem less immediately engaging than, for instance, Sugar (That Sugar Baby Of Mine) and Golden Earrings, which Peggy recorded about two weeks later.
If you've wondered if there actually was a Freedom Train or if the concept existed only as the basis of a song, and/or if you've wondered whether the promotion was a success, the following excerpts from a July 30, 2012, New York magazine article may enlighten you:
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On December 10, 1946, [U.S.] Attorney General Tom Clark, worried that wartime national unity was fracturing, invited media, entertainment and advertising grandees to his office to pitch them on the idea of a “Freedom Train” that would travel the country with historic documents to “brighten the flame of American patriotism at a critical time.”
[The Freedom Train promotion was to be part of a larger effort, “The American Way.”]
The American Way was promoted in every medium available, from billboards to Superman comics. One representative stunt in 1947 was the Freedom Train, a red-white-and-blue locomotive christened the Spirit of 1776 and charged with barstorming the nation to exhibit a bounty of historic and patriotic documents. The project was promoted by [President] Harry Truman's Attorney General, financed by major corporations and packaged by movie and advertising executives. The mission was to demonstrate to one and all that America “was unified, consensual and inclusive” – or, in other words, a national adhering to “the vital center,” a term that would be coined by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. in 1949.
The launch was celebrated in Philadelphia to capitalize on the 160th anniversary of the Constitutional Convention, with an Independence Hall jamboree of patriotic songs and speeches broadcast on NBC. But though the train would chug on for 16 months, it was nearly thrown off-track by one dispute after another. Some of the exhibition documents...were dumped. The Gettysburgh Address survived the cut, but by being paired with an 1865 address by Robert E. Lee. Attempts to permit white and black viewers in the South to mix freely [to view the exhibit] were met with resistance... Even the choice of “freedom” as a rubric was a carefully considered avoidance of the more contentious “democracy.”
If you've wondered if there actually was a Freedom Train or if the concept existed only as the basis of a song, and/or if you've wondered whether the promotion was a success, the following excerpts from a July 30, 2012, New York magazine article may enlighten you:
__________________________
On December 10, 1946, [U.S.] Attorney General Tom Clark, worried that wartime national unity was fracturing, invited media, entertainment and advertising grandees to his office to pitch them on the idea of a “Freedom Train” that would travel the country with historic documents to “brighten the flame of American patriotism at a critical time.”
[The Freedom Train promotion was to be part of a larger effort, “The American Way.”]
The American Way was promoted in every medium available, from billboards to Superman comics. One representative stunt in 1947 was the Freedom Train, a red-white-and-blue locomotive christened the Spirit of 1776 and charged with barstorming the nation to exhibit a bounty of historic and patriotic documents. The project was promoted by [President] Harry Truman's Attorney General, financed by major corporations and packaged by movie and advertising executives. The mission was to demonstrate to one and all that America “was unified, consensual and inclusive” – or, in other words, a national adhering to “the vital center,” a term that would be coined by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. in 1949.
The launch was celebrated in Philadelphia to capitalize on the 160th anniversary of the Constitutional Convention, with an Independence Hall jamboree of patriotic songs and speeches broadcast on NBC. But though the train would chug on for 16 months, it was nearly thrown off-track by one dispute after another. Some of the exhibition documents...were dumped. The Gettysburgh Address survived the cut, but by being paired with an 1865 address by Robert E. Lee. Attempts to permit white and black viewers in the South to mix freely [to view the exhibit] were met with resistance... Even the choice of “freedom” as a rubric was a carefully considered avoidance of the more contentious “democracy.”
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Re: "The Freedom Train" August 31, 2012 01:52AM |
Registered: 4 years ago Posts: 1,141 |
Kevin, thanks for bringing up a fresh topic.
The one recollection that always comes to mind when I hear (of) this song is the anecdote that both Peggy and Maggie told, about the attack of giggles and "screwing of lyrics" that the two of them had while recording Capitol's version of the number. This kept happening during the spoken part of the song, in which the singing participants quickly give their names. After many aborted takes, they had to leave for dinner, calm down, and then come back!
The magazine article (which I probably would have not caught if you hadn't alerted us to its publication) is a welcome addition to the online writings about this topic. From our music-oriented perspective, oneonline page worth checking out is this one:
[www.lincoln-highway-museum.org]
It lists the various versions of the song that were released back in 1947, along with sheet music and a photo of Irving with the Decca team (Bing and the Andrews Sisters).
Ivan
The one recollection that always comes to mind when I hear (of) this song is the anecdote that both Peggy and Maggie told, about the attack of giggles and "screwing of lyrics" that the two of them had while recording Capitol's version of the number. This kept happening during the spoken part of the song, in which the singing participants quickly give their names. After many aborted takes, they had to leave for dinner, calm down, and then come back!
The magazine article (which I probably would have not caught if you hadn't alerted us to its publication) is a welcome addition to the online writings about this topic. From our music-oriented perspective, oneonline page worth checking out is this one:
[www.lincoln-highway-museum.org]
It lists the various versions of the song that were released back in 1947, along with sheet music and a photo of Irving with the Decca team (Bing and the Andrews Sisters).
Ivan
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