Though the intended audience was britain, I listened to this from the time I was a kid in the US. Is perspective is always valued and never seems dated.
One of America's greatest and best composers. You have only to listen to All The Things You Are, Long Ago and Far Away, People Will Say We're in Love, and Showboat!
Wonderful 🎉 Anyone have a copy of “The Unseen Alistair Cooke”? I looked on RU-vid with no success. Think it was originally on PBS several years ago. Also checked the PBS shop but nothing. 😔
What struck me by watching her movies was that she had the most perfect athletic body of any actress, English or American, in the 1930's. That gave her dancing a great amount of sex appeal, though it was not overt but understated.
If this brilliant, if somewhat curtailed biography of The Master by another master has whetted your appetite, check out the book by Laurence Bergreen named after the musical , As Thousands Cheer. Irving Berlin was a very complex character, much troubled towards the end of his life with bitterness and self-doubt but no one was a more prolific composer of American Music in the first half of the 20th century. Jerome Kern said it thus, " Irving Berlin has no place in American music. He IS American music."
From relatively humble beginnings he grew to be a friend of the great and the good. He studied history and appreciated the light it could shed on the present. His eye fell on people, places and subjects far and wide. His knowledge showed in his writing and monologues but, he was never preachy or boring. His sharp wit, logical mind and excellent storytelling kept you engaged. He is very sadly missed. We have only a handful of people like this now and none perhaps have that human link to history.
My viewpoint is this: I love his voice and his performances. Extremely talented and versatile. He does seem to be very humble. Another huge plus. You want to like him. Seems like someone who would be a very loyal pal. Do I idolize the man? No. He was flawed as we all are. There is only one who walked the earth in perfection. Jesus.
Interesting stuff, but it is curious he mentions junkies living off the state. USA has never been much of a welfare state. Social programs are practically non existent compared to the rest of G8. USA was early with social security, but it is hardly a handout as it is simply the current working generation paying a bare minimum pension for the previous generation. The only real handouts, as in getting something for nothing have gone to bankers, who every few years in a tsunami of unchecked greed causes economic collapse and forces big daddy to either bail them out or cover their losses, as well as being forced to issue massive government dept to recover the economy.
Savannah , GA can't capture all this Great man did. But it sure captures a Big chunk. Love seeing the family plot at , Bonaventure Cemetary! Worth the whole trip
Alistair is long gone but after hearing his "tributes" of Marx and Crosby...did he really know either one well enough? I laughed when he said Crosby kept an even keel during the hard times of his life...how could he keep an even keel when he was a known drunk?
I have long believed that there would (should) have been a dream partnership between Jesse Matthews and Fred Astaire. I will always remember her tossing cares over her shoulder!
Bing's early recording of Pennies From Heaven is to me the definitive one , his voice then was so much higher than the later Bing's White Christmas days, the latter is of course to, not just me but everyone THE Christmas song of all time.
