Spotlight on Berlin’s music

HERSHEY Felder, award winner, music virtuoso, is doing 10 weeks at 59E59. A one-man show on Irving Berlin.

“Berlin stuck his famous patriotic song ‘God Bless America’ in a trunk with other unused material. He wrote it during the First World War, and nobody was interested in it. When Kate Smith needed something for Armistice Day 1938, he dug it out, changed one line and that was it.

“He never made one cent from it. In 1893, arriving at Ellis Island a Russian immigrant, he saw Lady Liberty, understood the freedom this great country gave him, and donated that song’s royalties in perpetuity to Scouts of America.

“He wrote late at night ‘sweating, leaving droplets of blood,’ he said, creating those great songs ‘Always,’ ‘Blue Skies,’ ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band,’ ‘There’s No Business Like Show Business,’ ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz.’ He didn’t write at the piano. He’d hum. Assistants then sketched it out, and he’d make harmonies.

“The end of his life, 1989, was unhappy. Prone to depression, when something went wrong he’d say, ‘I’m done’ and close up. Angry, depressed, a recluse. Near the end, he shut his Beekman Place house, wouldn’t go for walks or attend his daughter’s wedding.

“Elvis was a mitigating factor. He recorded ‘White Christmas’ without contacting Berlin. Everyone everywhere played it. With hips and hair, he bastardized this song, which was important to Irving Berlin, who became infuriated. He couldn’t accommodate rock ’n’ roll, and Elvis represented the world in which he’d been important for 60 years and was now passing him by.

“A supreme patriot, this ‘land that I love’ was deeply personal to Irving Berlin. Too many changes happening in this country. He couldn’t stand it.”

Much like what’s happening today.