This Land that I Love: Irving Berlin, Woody Guthrie, and the Story of Two American Anthems
In telling the stories of those unofficial U.S. national anthems, “God Bless America” and “This Land Is Your Land,” Shaw tells those of most of their predecessors, too, including the official one, “The Star-Spangled Banner.” So doing, he recaps much American musical-entertainment history and intertwines the careers of his main subjects’ creators, Irving Berlin and Woody Guthrie. Berlin, though responding to a request for a march, crafted a song he preferred be delivered as a prayer-like ballad (he got his client, Kate Smith, to first sing it that way, too, though she reprised it martially). Guthrie never really finished his song, tinkering with the words until Huntington’s disease disabled him (others, including Pete Seeger, further messed with them). Coursing through the account is a concern for antiblack racism, always the greatest challenge to the sentiments of U.S. national anthems. Shaw writes unusually accessibly (e.g., using solfège when discussing musical phrases) but sometimes sloppily (e.g., “notes of indeterminate pitch”—huh?). Finally, the bibliography is more popular than academic, and the recommended listening essay is full of fascination. --Ray Olson