page_title: Kate Smith
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Kate Smith / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: Cover of Radio Mirror, October 1934 featuring Kate Smith
context_page_description: Kathryn Elizabeth Smith, known professionally as Kate Smith and The First Lady of Radio, was an American singer, a contralto, well known for her rendition of Irving Berlin's "God Bless America". She had a radio, television, and recording career spanning five decades, which reached its pinnacle in the 1940s. Smith became known as The Songbird of the South after her enduring popularity during World War II.
context_section_description: During Honeymoon Lane's run in New York, Smith made her first phonograph recordings, consisting of songs from that show. The first sessions were for Victor but none were issued. Her first issued recordings, from an October 28, 1926, session, appeared on the Columbia label. She made a few more records for Columbia through May 1927. In 1929 through 1931 she again returned to Columbia's studios, this time appearing for the budget labels Harmony, Diva and Velvet Tone under a pseudonym. These commercially successful records were often sung in the style of Ethel Waters and Ruth Etting, although other were more akin to the early crooning style of Bing Crosby and Russ Columbo.
  Her musical career took a huge leap in 1930 when Columbia Records A&R executive Ted Collins took an interest as a result of her Hit the Deck performances.  Collins would become her longtime manager in 50–50 partnership. Smith had become self-conscious regarding her weight, in no small part because of the on- and off-stage mocking she received from co-star Bert Lahr. She later credited Collins with helping her overcome her self-consciousness, writing, "Ted Collins was the first man who regarded me as a singer, and didn't even seem to notice that I was a big girl." She noted, "I'm big, and I sing, and boy, when I sing, I sing all over!"
  Collins put Smith on radio in 1931. That year, she performed "Dream a Little Dream of Me". Her biggest hits were "River, Stay 'Way from My Door" (1931), "The Woodpecker Song" (1940), "The White Cliffs of Dover" (1941), "Rose O'Day" (1941), "The Last Time I Saw Paris" (1942), "I Don't Want to Walk Without You" (1942), "There Goes That Song Again" (1944), "Seems Like Old Times" (1946), and "Now Is the Hour" (1947). "Rose O'Day" sold over one million copies, her first to achieve this feat, and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA. Her theme song was "When the Moon Comes over the Mountain"; she had helped write the lyrics. Smith greeted her audience with "Hello, everybody!" and signed off with "Thanks for listenin'."
  In 1932, Smith appeared in Hello, Everybody!, with co-stars Randolph Scott and Sally Blane, and in the 1943 wartime film This Is the Army, she sang "God Bless America", which became her signature song.
caption: Smith on cover of Radio Mirror, Oct 1934
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