YOU'RE A GRAND OLD RAG presented by Ryan Barna

The New York Chapter of the Association for Recorded Sound Collections presents its September 2018 program:

"YOU'RE A GRAND OLD RAG": GEORGE M. COHAN, BILLY MURRAY, AND THE HISTORY OF "YOU'RE A GRAND OLD FLAG"
Presented by Ryan Barna

It took a rewrite, a world war, and a blockbuster film to solidify “You’re a Grand Old Flag” as an American patriotic standard. First written in 1906 and introduced in the Broadway musical George Washington, Jr. as “You’re a Grand Old Rag,” the song could have met an early demise had it not been for a popular phonograph singer whose records prevented the song from fading. While the song initially met with minor outrage in referencing the flag as a “rag,” the phonograph records by Billy Murray, selected for the National Recording Registry in 2003, remained on sale long after copies of the sheet music went out of print, despite receiving public objections of their own.

Acoustic recording historian and Billy Murray researcher Ryan Barna will share his primary research in the chronology of the song, the first-hand accounts of the criticism it received, plus a recently rediscovered interview of Cohan detailing his idea for the song. The presentation includes period recordings by Murray ranging from 1906 to 1942, progressing the changes in lyrics, and how Murray contributed to its longevity before James Cagney immortalized it in the 1942 film Yankee Doodle Dandy.