Echoes of Valor: The Poignant Soundtrack of World War II and Its Impact on American Country Music Episode 47
Apr 07, 2024
Randy
Travel back in time with us to the heart-wrenching era of World War II, where music wasn't just entertainment—it was a vital connection to home for soldiers and their families. As we wander through the poignant world of wartime tunes, we'll share how Tex Ritter's "There's a Gold Star in Her Window" and Ernest Tubb's "Soldier's Last Letter" captured the profound sorrow of loss. Our narrative also reveals the roles of Axis Sally and Tokyo Rose, whose broadcasts, filled with music and propaganda, aimed to shake the morale of our troops. Join Dave and me as we unravel these musical tales that underscore the resilience and shared experiences of a generation under siege.
Circling back to the homeland, we salute the musicians who've crafted anthems of patriotism and captured the soldier's heart. From Tom T. Hall's "Hello Vietnam" to Toby Keith's unwavering support of the troops, we'll explore the songs that have woven themselves into the fabric of American pride. John Prine's "Sam Stone" and the stirring narratives of country music legends will stir emotions, as we reflect on the sacrifices made in the name of freedom. Don't miss these powerful stories, along with a glimpse into the Hillbilly Highway's impact on the genre post-war, right here on Hot Mic with Houston and Hogan.
Travel back in time with us to the heart-wrenching era of World War II, where music wasn't just entertainment—it was a vital connection to home for soldiers and their families. As we wander through the poignant world of wartime tunes, we'll share how Tex Ritter's "There's a Gold Star in Her Window" and Ernest Tubb's "Soldier's Last Letter" captured the profound sorrow of loss. Our narrative also reveals the roles of Axis Sally and Tokyo Rose, whose broadcasts, filled with music and propaganda, aimed to shake the morale of our troops. Join Dave and me as we unravel these musical tales that underscore the resilience and shared experiences of a generation under siege.
Circling back to the homeland, we salute the musicians who've crafted anthems of patriotism and captured the soldier's heart. From Tom T. Hall's "Hello Vietnam" to Toby Keith's unwavering support of the troops, we'll explore the songs that have woven themselves into the fabric of American pride. John Prine's "Sam Stone" and the stirring narratives of country music legends will stir emotions, as we reflect on the sacrifices made in the name of freedom. Don't miss these powerful stories, along with a glimpse into the Hillbilly Highway's impact on the genre post-war, right here on Hot Mic with Houston and Hogan.
Speaker 1:
Hello again, everyone, and thank you for joining Randy Houston and Dave Hogan on a podcast we call Hot Mike, with Houston and Hogan.
Speaker 2:
Hello, randy. There's so much about the music associated with World War II that we didn't get around to talking about. I want to mention a couple of other things. If you listened to our previous podcast, you heard us talking about Tex Ritter and we told a couple of stories about Tex Ritter. But I did want to mention on our second podcast, as we talk about songs from World War II, that the biggest song that Tex Ritter had in World War II was called there's a Gold Star in Her Window. Yeah, there's a gold star in her window. A gold star.
Speaker 2:
Mother was a mother who lost her son in a battle, and that song by Tex Ritter was tremendously popular during World War II. Some of the other artists that were popular in World War II and helped spread country music across the country. A lot of soldiers had never been exposed to country music, but in the rec centers and even on the battlefield, soldiers from the South would be singing a country music song and a soldier from maybe Montana or some other state where country music at that time was not popular would become acquainted with country music and take it back home to his hometown. But another artist and we all know this one, ernest Tubb.
Speaker 1:
I'm walking the floor over you.
Speaker 2:
He was just getting into country music during World War II he had a song called Soldier's Last Letter. When a postman delivered a letter it filled her heart with joy. But she didn't know it was the last letter from her darling boy. And it's the sad story about a mother who gets a letter from her son and then finds out that that's the last letter, that he was killed in the war and became and she became a gold star. Uh, mother that tex ritter's song related to talked about, sung about sang about the um.
Speaker 1:
I've heard my dad refer to songs like that as a real tearjerker, a tearjerker.
Speaker 2:
But on the serious side it was very important to you know. Music Television was not around, it was just being in its infancy. In World War II, yeah, of course a lot of things stopped. I read a story one time that said television would have come if it hadn't been for World War II. Television would have become popular in the late 30s and early 40s, but during World War II everything stopped except manufacturing products for the war effort. Yeah, so television was kind of put on the shelf until later in the 1940s, and it was in the 1950s before television became mainstream. So recorded music was Stymied the wild air.
Speaker 2:
Well recorded music was oh was the replacement. Yeah, it was pre-television Gotcha and Floyd Tillman I've heard that name. You'll find his name as the writer of a bunch of different country music hits. But he popularized a song during World War II called Each Night at Nine Each Night at Nine, please think of me, dear. Each night at nine. And I was doing some research and I pulled up the title that title Each Night at Nine. And lo and behold, I found a Willie Nelson recording. You know, willie, I guess, has sung every song that's ever been written.
Speaker 1:
I agree.
Speaker 2:
But what impressed me about Willie Nelson's version and I think it came out it was not a hit song. It was not what they now refer to as a radio hit made for radio. You know, the artists try to find that one song off an album that they send to radio stations that will become a hit for them. This was not a hit, but it was on one of Willie's albums and you can find it on the Internet Google Willie Nelson, and each night at 9. And one of the reasons they're bringing up Willie is because at that time when he recorded this, he was in the. This was when he was at a peak as far as his singing voice was concerned. It's better Willie than the Willie that started and better Willie than the current Willie. And of course, willie is 90 years old now and you obviously are going to lose a great deal of your ability to enunciate, and I think Willie also has some breathing problems.
Speaker 1:
But you know what?
Speaker 2:
And he now sits down as he does his shows.
Speaker 1:
Right right, but he know what and he now sits down as he does his shows, right, right.
Speaker 2:
But he was in fine voice, his voice in that song, if you listen to Willie Nelson, and Each Night at Nine his voice. I was trying to think when I was listening to it. It's kind of like molasses flowing along. I was trying to in my mind to figure what does that voice remind me of? It was so smooth. So you've got to, when we finish this program, pull it up so we can listen to it.
Speaker 1:
I will Each night at 9.
Speaker 2:
Now, during World War II. You remember the name, you've heard it. You weren't around during World War II. You remember the name, you've heard it. You weren't around during World War II Tokyo Rose. Yes, the name, tokyo Rose. She was the spy right. Tokyo Rose had a radio program?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, she was propaganda.
Speaker 2:
Right. There were two female we'd call them disc jockeys today who became popular in World War II as propagandists. One was Axis Sally out of Germany and Tokyo Rose out of Japan, and their programs were directed to American soldiers to try to make them so homesick that they'd become less efficient as fighters. But ultimately the program was to try to get the soldiers to desert to give up. And each night at nine that was one of the songs that was played most often by Axis Sally in Germany and Tokyo Rose in Japan. They were on strong and both of them, by the way, were American citizens.
Speaker 2:
Tokyo Rose was born to immigrant parents in the United States, immigrants from Japan. She had gone back home to Japan to help care for an aunt of hers who was ill and she was caught there during when the war started and she couldn't leave. And she had a job as a secretary at a radio station. So she was recruited and, I'm sure, forced at that time to become what became known as Tokyo Rose. Actually, tokyo Rose was just a nickname. She didn't go by that name on the air. That's the nickname she was given by the American troops. And Axis Sally also was a US citizen who was in Germany when the war broke out, and it's a very similar story. Eddie Arnold had a song called Did you See my Daddy Over there? You can imagine what that song was like. Yeah, johnny Bond. And Johnny Bond was an artist that was popular and he was also a great songwriter Kind of been lost to history. You don't hear the name Johnny Bond as you do some of the other artists of the 40s, and he had a song called I'm a Prisoner of War on a Foreign Shore and in the song he asked Americans to please remember soldiers who were captured by the enemy in World War II and became POWs.
Speaker 2:
You know I like museums and I mentioned visiting the World War II Museum in New Orleans. Another museum that I visited and I'd never heard of it, was down near America's Georgia. It's a POW museum and you go into that POW museum museum and you go into that POW museum. It's very impressive and the reason it's there near Americus Georgia is because there was a prison back during the Civil War and the name of the prison escapes me at the moment, but there was a large prison there where Union troops were sent when they were captured. So that's why this POW Museum is located near America's Georgia, and in the museum they they recreate. For instance, just to give you one example, they uh create the re. They recreated the kind of orders that john mccain, the late senator john mccain uh lived in when he was a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War.
Speaker 1:
They recreated it there. Mm-hmm, I bet that's haunting.
Speaker 2:
It is. You know, it's like a cage.
Speaker 1:
And he was held like that for five years right.
Speaker 2:
Yes, and he had an offer to be released because his dad was also a military man and John had rank John McCain in World War II, or rather in the Vietnam War, when this happened and they offered to release him, and he said I'm not going to leave my buddies. You release me, you release all of them. Yeah, and so he stayed, one of the great American heroes.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely.
Speaker 2:
John McCain, absolutely, and a former candidate for president of the United States. We've been talking about World War II and when you get into the Korean War, I have memories. I have some memories of World War II because I was born during World War II and I remember my dad coming home. Don't remember him leaving, I was too young to remember that but I remember him Well. I guess my earliest memory is a big to a kid, you know who's about three or four years old.
Speaker 2:
A car was a big thing. But I remember this big black car driving up our driveway out in the country with a telegram from my mom that my dad had been injured, had been wounded, in World War II. But and I remember my dad coming home from World War II. But when you get up to the Korean War, I was old enough to remember a lot of things about the Korean War. Following they had in the newspapers. They had a chart every day of where the battles were going on and how far south the chinese and north koreans, how far south they had overtaken, overtaken the and then of course, south korea. Eventually you know that war has never been officially ended I didn't know that there was was just a truth.
Speaker 1:
Wow.
Speaker 2:
Never officially ended, nobody surrendered, nobody declared victory in the Korean War. But I bring that up, bring the Korean War up. To mention another song, and I don't remember who the artist was, but I remember it being played on the radio. It was called Atomic Power. The movie Oppenheimer just recently won all those Oscars.
Speaker 1:
Yes, Nominated for 15.
Speaker 2:
Right Atomic Power. At that time I remember going through drills in school what to do in case there was a nuclear fallout. Atomic fallout was what it was called then atomic bomb. The word nuclear was not as popular at that time.
Speaker 1:
Fallout, shelters, markings, the triangle uh, you saw those everywhere. Uh, we had those drills in school too. Uh, later on. But I don't have the memories you do of the korean war. That didn't start for me till the vietnam war. But go on with your memories from korean war well they're.
Speaker 2:
They're there, but but pretty vague. I don't remember. I remember hearing that song about the atomic power on the radio.
Speaker 1:
But let's move on to the era that you're talking about, the vietnam war, because it was very important in the world of country music well, I gotta confess to you, if there's a time and a slot in my life, well, there are several slots in my life where I steered away from country radio, and that was one of them. Another one was when you and I worked together in the adult standards format. But in my teenage years, through the Vietnam era, I was hung up on these vietnam protest songs. I got swept up in that and uh and I got uh where have all the flowers gone?
Speaker 2:
oh and war.
Speaker 1:
Good god. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing the answer.
Speaker 2:
My friend is blowing in the wind All those songs Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger wrote when have All the Flowers Gone, but it was popularized by Peter, Paul and Mary and not necessarily a country. I think the Kingston Trio also had a recording of when have All the Flowers.
Speaker 1:
Gone, they did.
Speaker 2:
Popular during the Vietnam War. They did.
Speaker 1:
I've played it.
Speaker 2:
And the first recording that was written by the first song recorded by one of the great country music songwriters was a song called Hello Vietnam, written by Tom T Hall. Wow, and that song, hello Vietnam, popularized by Johnny Wright and Kitty Wells, was the first song that was a hit, written by Tom T Hall.
Speaker 1:
Great storyteller, great songwriter, great performer all around. We all love Tom T Hall.
Speaker 2:
You know one of the songs that really made an impact on me and I really't, uh, pay too much attention. I didn't. I wish I had paid more attention to the songs and the writings of john prime.
Speaker 1:
Yes, you know the song sam stone oh, what a, what a an incredible song that is about the Vietnam soldier getting hooked on drugs and coming back home. And what's the line in that song that just that hole in his arm where the money goes. There's a hole in daddy's arm where all the money goes, arm where all the money goes.
Speaker 2:
John Prine wrote that song, called it Sam Stone because he was draft age during the Vietnam War and he was drafted. But he didn't go to fight. He was stationed in Germany but a lot of his friends, schoolmates, went to Vietnam. Yeah, went to. Vietnam. Yeah, and he writes about this one particular friend who came home from Vietnam Addicted.
Speaker 2:
Addicted to drugs. Yeah, and if you've never heard it, google it Sam Stone by John Prine. And of course there were lots of other songs during the Vietnam War, and one song that kind of related to the war was Merle Haggard and Oki from Muskogee. Yeah yeah, yeah, exactly. And the fight inside of me.
Speaker 1:
And there's a song playing in my head right this minute that I have to mention, which is Credence, clearwater, revival and Running Through the Jungle. Yes, yes. It's haunting it is Go, listen to Credence and Running Through the Jungle.
Speaker 2:
We want to bring up Toby Keith, because we lost Toby just recently. What a voice Toby Keith had.
Speaker 1:
Patriotic guy too.
Speaker 2:
And he received. He had a song called Courtesy of the Red, white and Blue. Remember that.
Speaker 1:
Oh, definitely called courtesy of the red, white and blue. Remember that. Oh, definitely, I play. I'm still on the air and I do our early mornings and at 6 45 every morning I play a patriotic song of the day sponsored by miller brothers and uh, and I play a lot of toby keith.
Speaker 2:
And Toby. Wherever there was American soldiers, toby was there. He toured and received the Spirit of the USO Award, the highest award given by USO. And of course the USO was established way back in World War II. And Bob Hope and a lot of entertainers travel to areas of battle to entertain the soldiers or maybe in addition to I know sometimes they got pretty close to where the soldiers were fighting, they got real close. But also they entertain troops wherever they were stationed Anywhere in the world.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, wherever they were stationed.
Speaker 2:
Anywhere in the world. Yeah, and Toby Keith, whether it was Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Guam.
Speaker 1:
Toby Keith went and entertained our troops and our troops loved him, because I sometimes play these songs from YouTube and there's a video that goes with the recording of these songs and the crowd the soldiers loved Toby Keith. It was just incredible to watch.
Speaker 2:
So that kind of brings us up to the present day We've been talking. In case you missed our last show, you can go back and hear it. One of the things that happens with podcasts. You can go back I'm sure in our case and listen to previous podcasts.
Speaker 1:
They're all on YouTube. Now, all our podcasts are on YouTube if you like that, if you prefer that. But they're also Spotify, apple iTunes wherever they're everywhere. So Spotify, apple iTunes, wherever they're everywhere.
Speaker 2:
You can go back and listen to our previous show, yes, where we started talking about country music and how World War II helped popularize country music across the United States and, ultimately, around the world.
Speaker 1:
You sure can.
Speaker 2:
And, dave, I thank you so much for all the research you've done into these stories about wars and country music and we're going to take a break we'll be back, uh, with another oh, by the way, oh, in addition to world war two, another event and this I guess you it, it's a, it's a series of of events that propelled country music was the hillbilly highway. Now, I'm not talking about the hillbilly highway up in eastern kentucky, I'm talking about the migration of southerners to the north uh, when world war ii?
Speaker 1:
when they came home from world war ii, the factories in det Detroit were making cars.
Speaker 2:
We'll talk about that maybe on the next podcast.
Speaker 1:
That's a great one, the Hillbilly Highway. Thank you so much for joining us on Hot Mike with Houston and Hogan. Be sure to click the subscribe button for another episode of Hot Mike with Randy Houston and Dave Hogan.