On America’s 249th birthday, we take a look at the completely different definitions of America by revisiting NPR’s American Anthem collection.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Independence Day means various things to every of us. And on this 249th birthday for America, we’ll spend a while taking a look at completely different definitions of America by revisiting NPR’s American Anthem collection, which had the easy purpose of telling 50 tales about 50 songs which have turn out to be galvanizing forces in American tradition. We begin with a music that a lot of you’ll in all probability bear in mind from childhood.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Singing) This little mild of mine, I will let it shine. This little…
CHANG: Critic Eric Deggans checked out how the beloved kids’s music “This Little Gentle Of Mine” grew to become a civil rights anthem.
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UNIDENTIFIED GROUP #1: (Singing) This little mild of mine…
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Singing) I will let it shine.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP #1: (Singing) I will let it shine.
ERIC DEGGANS, BYLINE: Generally, consultants say, songs like “This Little Gentle Of Mine” begin off as kids’s folks songs, which turn out to be spirituals sung all over the place from church buildings to jail work camps.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Singing) All over the place I am going, I will let it shine.
DEGGANS: Because the civil rights motion grew within the Fifties and ’60s, singers modified the lyrics to reference their struggles. These new variations had been generally known as freedom songs.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: (Singing) I’ve acquired the sunshine of freedom. I will let it shine.
DEGGANS: It might sound odd to name such an innocent-sounding music defiant, however that is precisely how blues singer Bettie Mae Fikes felt when she created her basic model of “This Little Gentle Of Mine” in 1963. She improvised the lyrics after a protest during which a number of of her associates had been attacked.
BETTIE MAE FIKES: And I am considering, you realize, how is the sunshine shine after they’re making an attempt to place our lights out? So all people was taking verses. And to be able to are available, I simply went into the slave name. (Singing) Whoa.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “THIS LITTLE LIGHT OF MINE”)
FIKES: (Singing) Whoa, inform Jim Clark that…
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP #2: (Singing) I will let it shine.
FIKES: And hastily, I simply began including our oppressors within the music – inform Jim Clark I will let it shine.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “THIS LITTLE LIGHT OF MINE”)
FIKES: (Singing) Inform Jim Clark…
And as I added my oppressors, right here different individuals within the viewers started to shout out, inform the KKK, inform our president. It was like being free.
DEGGANS: Nonetheless, one query persists. Why has “This Little Gentle Of Mine” survived for therefore lengthy? Robert Darden, a professor at Baylor College, who’s written in regards to the music in a minimum of two books, has a idea.
ROBERT DARDEN: In the event you’ve requested among the survivors of the civil rights motion, as I did – survivors who sang these songs for defense and for braveness – why “This Little Gentle Of Mine” survives and remains to be sung, they might take a look at me straight within the eye and say, as a result of these songs are anointed. And as an educational, I’ve no technique to refute that, nor do I need to.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: (Singing) This little mild of mine, I will let it shine.
CHANG: That was Robert Darden speaking to NPR’s Eric Deggans about “This Little Gentle Of Mine.”
The phrase anthem connotes one thing large – proper? – one thing that unites listeners but additionally perhaps one thing that challenges them. Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare For The Frequent Man” was composed in 1942, and since then, it has been heard all over the place. NPR’s Mandalit del Barco regarded into why this music continues to command a lot consideration.
MANDALIT DEL BARCO, BYLINE: Aaron Copland started his fanfare with dramatic percussion.
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MANDALIT DEL BARCO: It heralds one thing large, thrilling, heroic. Then easy trumpet notes ascend.
(SOUNDBITE OF SAO PAULO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA PERFORMANCE OF AARON COPLAND’S “FANFARE FOR THE COMMON MAN”)
TERENCE BLANCHARD: It is a piece that feels prefer it was written by God and never by a human.
MANDALIT DEL BARCO: Jazz trumpet participant and composer Terence Blanchard.
BLANCHARD: Every time I hear it, it stops me in my tracks, and it makes me replicate on the goodness of man, actually. And I do know that sounds corny for some, however it actually makes me take into consideration, on the finish of the day, you realize, most individuals on this nation are good, God-fearing individuals. Truthfully, that would have been our nationwide anthem (laughter). It has that sort of spirit to it.
(SOUNDBITE OF SAO PAULO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA PERFORMANCE OF AARON COPLAND’S “FANFARE FOR THE COMMON MAN”)
MANDALIT DEL BARCO: By 1942, the U.S. had entered World Battle II, and composer Aaron Copland was impressed by a speech Vice President Henry A. Wallace gave to rally Individuals.
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HENRY A WALLACE: Some have spoken of the American century. I say that the century on which we’re getting into, the century which is able to come into being after this warfare, might be and have to be the century of the widespread man.
(APPLAUSE)
MANDALIT DEL BARCO: And the widespread man deserved a fanfare, Copland as soon as mentioned, remarking, it was the widespread man, in any case, who was doing all of the soiled work within the warfare and the Military. NPR requested listeners to replicate on Aaron Copland’s fanfare.
LYNN GILBERT: My title is Lynn Gilbert, and I stay in Bristol, Maine. My profession was in IT for a utility firm. And in spite of the present political panorama, I assume I nonetheless consider that there’s an American dream of peace and prosperity for everybody. And music that soars and evokes like this piece does brings hope for the longer term. It is highly effective, it is direct, and it is actually simply American. I like it. Thanks, Aaron Copland.
MANDALIT DEL BARCO: All of that in a bit that is beneath 4 minutes lengthy.
(SOUNDBITE OF SAO PAULO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA PERFORMANCE OF AARON COPLAND’S “FANFARE FOR THE COMMON MAN”)
MANDALIT DEL BARCO: Mandalit del Barco, NPR Information.
(SOUNDBITE OF SAO PAULO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA PERFORMANCE OF AARON COPLAND’S “FANFARE FOR THE COMMON MAN”)
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