[th]Birth name[/th]
| Kathryn Elizabeth Smith | [th]Born[/th]
May 1, 1907
Greenville, Virginia, U.S. | [th]Died[/th]
June 17, 1986 (aged 79)
Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S. | [th]Occupation(s)[/th]
| Singer | [th]Instruments[/th]
| Vocals | [th]Years active[/th]
| 1926–1976 | [th]Labels[/th]
Early lifeEdit
Kathryn Elizabeth Smith was born May 1, 1907, in Greenville, Virginia, to Charlotte 'Lottie' Yarnell (néeHanby) and William Herman Smith, growing up in Washington, D.C.[1] Her father owned the Capitol News Company, distributing newspapers and magazines in the greater D.C. area. She was the youngest of three daughters, the middle child dying in infancy. As a baby, she failed to talk until she was four years old, but a year later she was singing in church socials. By the time she was eight, she was singing for the troops at Army camps in the Washington area during World War I. Smith never had a singing lesson in her life and possessed a 'rich range' of two and a half octaves. Her earliest performances were during amateur nights at vaudeville theaters in D.C.
Her earliest musical influences were her parents: her father sang choir at the Catholic church; her mother played piano at the Presbyterian church. She attended Business High School in D.C.—which would later become Roosevelt Senior High School—likely graduating in 1924. Alarmed by his daughter's evident penchant for the stage, her father sent her to the George Washington University School for Nursing—where she attended classes for nine months between 1924-25—withdrawing to pursue a career in show business.[2]
She got herself on the bill at Keith's Theater in Boston as a singer. Heading the bill was the actor and producer Eddie Dowling, who signed up the young singer for a revue he was preparing. It was called Honeymoon Lane, and it opened in Atlantic City, New Jersey on August 29, 1926. A month later, it moved to Broadway.
An indelicate review in The New York Times on October 31, 1926, under the heading "A Sophie Tucker Rival", said: "A 19-year-old girl, weighing in the immediate neighborhood of 200 pounds, is one of the discoveries of the season for those whose interests run to syncopators and singers of what in the varieties and nightclubs are known as 'hot' songs. Kate Smith is the newcomer's not uncommon name."
From Honeymoon Lane, Smith went into the road company of Vincent Youmans' Hit the Deck, where she won acclaim singing "Hallelujah!" as a mammy in blackface.[3] Back in New York City, she took the company lead in George White's Flying High, which opened at the Apollo Theater on March 3, 1930, and ran for 122 performances. As Pansy Sparks, Smith's role was to be the butt of Bert Lahr's often cruel jibes about her girth. She said later that she often wept with humiliation in her dressing room after the show.
Career
Recordings
Significance in professional sports
ControversyEdit
Smith's rendition of "God Bless America" was played during the seventh-inning stretch of New York Yankees home games from 2009 until April 2019, when the practice was discontinued amid controversy surrounding her 1931 recordings of "That's Why Darkies Were Born" and "Pickaninny Heaven."[16] The following day, the Philadelphia Flyers followed suit, stating "As we continue to look into this serious matter, we are removing Kate Smith’s recording of 'God Bless America’ from our library and covering up the statue that stands outside of our arena.”[17] The statue was removed on April 21, 2019.[18] On April 22, 2019 her family responded by denying the racism allegations.[19]
The song, "That's Why Darkies Were Born" was purely SATIRICAL, as part of the 1931 Broadway revue "George White's Scandals" as a SATIRE of white supremacists. Kate Smith wrote the song with Paul Robeson, actor and Civil Rights activist - an African American. Paul Robeson's father was a runaway slave. The songs were sung with satire .. no different from "Springtime For Hitler" written in satire by Mel Brooks - a Jєω. Anything, even the fight against actual racism, can be deemed racist.
In spite of allegations of racism, Smith was noted for having black musicians and entertainers on her radio show in the 1940s and her television shows in the 1950s. She had black musicians on her radio show more than 40 times, including Bill Robinson (Bojangles), Count Basie, Cozy Cole, the Deep River Boys, the Delta Rhythm Boys, Duke Ellington, Eddie Haywood, Ethel Waters, the Ink Spots, the King Cole Trio, Lionel Hampton, Maurice Rocco, and the Southernaires.[20]
Personal lifeEdit
Smith, who never married, rented several apartments in Manhattan during her long career. She had a home in Arlington, Virginia, and kept a summer home on a small island in Lake Placid, New York.[21]
ReligionEdit
After attending services at a Catholic parish for 25 years, Smith converted to Catholicism in 1965. During the time she spent in Lake Placid, she regularly attended Sunday mass at St. Agnes Roman Catholic Church and could be heard singing the hymns in her contralto voice.[22] |
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Topic: Anti Catholicism in Philadelphia (Read 572 times)