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Playlist: Patriotic

Compiled By: Erin Wright

Caption: PRX default Playlist image
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The Star Spangled Banner

From Richard Paul | 15:11

There are things you think you know about the Star-Spangled Banner. Most of them are wrong.

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There are things you think you know about the Star-Spangled Banner.  Would it surprise you to know that most of them are wrong?  It wasn’t a German drinking song.  And no, you won’t go to jail for singing it in Spanish.  In this podcast we bust some old myths and tell you some fascinating new things about our National Anthem -- like words we don’t sing anymore and tunes you’d barely recognize.  It turns out there are hundreds of different ways to perform The Star-Spangled Banner.  This podcast is narrated by Leonard Slatkin, an orchestra conductor who hasn’t played every version of the song, but once had his orchestra play it 18 different ways.

Black and Navy Blue

From Richard Paul | 15:29

The African-American Pioneers of Navy Music

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Music has been vitally important in helping to change culture in a way and in a place you might not expect – race relations in the United States Navy.   The Navy was once the most integrated of the US military services.  There was a time when African-Americans could serve in the Navy and nowhere else.  But over time, when society changed, the Navy because the branch of service where racism and discrimination were most deeply engrained.  Each time that the Navy moved to change its racial discrimination, it turned to musicians to be the pioneers.