American Music in WWI

Sheet Music

    As Mrs. Lawson came to my desk for me to pick my topic out of a makeshift "hat", a feeling of anxiety swept through me because picking a lame or complicated topic results in an unbelievable amount of stress. Once I reached my hand into that bowl I first chose one slip of paper and it just did not feel right, so I dropped it back in without reading the mysterious words. Then I picked once more and rest assured it was the right choice. The topic I randomly chose was American Music in the WWI time period. Phew, no boring topics like Military strategies or something I'm completely uninterested in. Personally, I love music so I was excited about learning about how music was in the past. So I held onto my topic and began to think about research.
     Once I began researching I clearly saw the effect that the war had on music during the time period of 1914-1918. I believe that the war played a major role in sparking the growth of music.  I found that the war helped spread the new era of Jazz. The war also changed how people used music, music became a means of escape during the hard times of war. Also, music granted the ability to help people relate to the lyrics and cope with the war; like the infamous song written at this time "Over There".

Hellfighters during WWI

James Reese

    The Jazz era began during WWI and spread fast because black soldiers took it to Europe. When America sent troops to France in WWI, one of the infantries started a Jazz band. The band was called the Hellfighters and consisted of musically-gifted black Americans. It took me more in depth research to realize that the band itself was called the Hellfighters, but the troop that started the band was the 369th infantry. Anyway, the leader of the Hellfighters, Lieutenant James Reese, was also deeply involved into Jazz back home. The Hellfighters introduced Europe to Jazz and the fox-trot. Lieutenant Reese believed that music and dances would, in his words "bring together all classes of men who stand for something in the community." Eventually, the Hellfighters became extremely popular overseas, and everyone wanted to hear the new Jazz music. Previously before researching I did not know much on jazz music besides Scott Joplin from Sanders Clayton's research last semester.  I have struggled finding this information because Jazz music itself is such a broad topic. However, once I found this book on American Music, I narrowed my topic down to the Hellfighters. Besides the fact that this book was huge and overwhelming, it had everything I needed to know about the Jazz age in America. A lot of the book included information past the time frame that I needed, but I still was able to get good research from using this source.

Cheesy title for sheet music
in WWI

    WWI stimulated the need and want for music. During this hard time, people used music to escape from the fear and tragic stories that haunted every American in the early 20th century. Popular songs consisted of lyrics written to help people feel like they are not alone. Most of them related to the war in some kind of manner. I found that most of these songs had extremely cheesy, long titles like "I Tried to Raise My Boy To Be a Hero",   "Don't Take My Darling Boy Away" and "Sister Susie's Sewing Shirts for Soliders". Some of these songs also urged Americans back home to unite, and aid and pray for the soldiers overseas.  The website that I used to find this information was interesting because it had some mp3s of these songs, and descriptions of what was going on in history when these songs were being recorded. I was also wondering if these songs can be purchased on iTunes.

"Over There" Sheet Music

When I first typed in American Music in WWI "Over There" the first thing to pop up. The song was written by George M. Cohan during WWI. It became one of the most popular songs in America. As my source for this paragraph of research I read the original lyrics of the song. My depiction of what this song means is an average boy "Johnnie" who enlists in the war to fight for the liberty of America. Johnnie makes his parents proud by fighting and becoming a man.  Then the chorus talks about American troops being sent to take on the war in Europe. I think this song sums up a lot of people's lives during this time, which is why it became such a hit. People wanted cheerful songs that would reassure families that their loved one would be safe. This song has popped up in many different shows and movies, including  famous movie "Yankee Doodle Dandy" by Turner Classic Films in 1942. It was hard for me to find where else "Over There" has appeared in. But on the illegal Wikipedia there is a short list of shows and movies with the song. Today "Over there" is an anthem to remember the lost soldiers and WWI itself.
  At first I had a rocky start with understanding all of this information, but quickly got everything together and was able to produce this masterpiece blog. I think the hardest part was finding a AVL source. Personally, those do not help me much at all because they are so complicated. Other than that, I feel like this research was successful and I have gained a lot of new information from this project!!