My Buddy sung by Henry Burr.
Memorial Day is inevitably taking on new significance as Coronavirus deaths in the U.S. top
100,000 with no end in sight and the
people are being purposefully turned against each other nearly to the point of civil war by a crazed and vicious President
and the oligarchs who support and encourage him. It is beyond tragic.
Today and tomorrow we will share
songs of love and separation identified with two of our nation’s wars. The losses we are enduring today are no
less heartbreaking.
My
Buddy
is popularly assumed to be a song about World
War I Doughboys, but it was not written
and recorded until 1922, four
years after the war ended and makes no reference
to it. It was composed by Walter Donaldson,
with lyrics by the successful and prolific Gus Kahn. In a simpler and more naïve time it was taken
as a sentimental paean to male friendship but the lyrics have homoerotic overtones that undoubtedly sailed
right over the heads of most listeners. And
there were a lot of them.
Tenor Henry Burr had been a major recording artist sisnce 1913 when he recorded My Buddy in 1922. |
The
Victor recording by popular tenor Henry Burr was the biggest seller
of 1922 and various editions of sheet music for parlor piano sing-alongs were just as successful. Within two years Ernest Hare, Ben Bernie,
and Al Jolson also had hit records.
Whatever
the intent of the songwriters, the song was adopted by many veterans
and was often played at gatherings
of the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW).
The identification with the Great
War was cemented when it was
used on the recorded soundtrack for
the otherwise silent 1927 film Wings
staring Buddy Rogers, Richard Arlen, Clara Bow and Gary Cooper. The movie about Army Air Corps pilots was the winner of the first Academy Award for
Best Picture.
My Buddy was on the soundtrack to the otherwise silent Wings, the mega hit of 1927. |
Interest
in the song was revived during World War
II with recordings by Harry James
and His Orchestra with Frank Sinatra,
Sammy Kaye, Guy Lombardo, and Glenn
Miller. In his self-financed pre-USO tours to American bases in the U.S., Central America and the Caribbean, and Britain and Northern Ireland, Al Jolson always
included My Buddy in the performances.
My Buddy was not a huge hit for Al Jolson, he did make the cover of one of several issues of the sheet music and included the song in his World War II troop entertainment performances. |
Many
artists have covered the song. A short selection of them includes Gene Autry and Bing Crosby, both of whom seemed to record everything, and Count Basie, Mario Lanza, Dinah Shore, Mel Tormé, Kate Smith, Doris Day, Lionel
Hampton, The Mills Brothers,
Connie Francis, Barbra Streisand, and Glenn
Frey.
Too
many of us are missing our Buddies today.
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