Kate Smith and the Flyers

Having commented on the Katharine Hepburn stamp, it seems only fair to note that another Kate — singer Kate Smith — now has a postage stamp.  Kathryn Elizabeth "Kate" Smith (1907-86) was a major radio personality during the 1930s and 1940s.  She was a frequent guest on the Ed Sullivan TV show when I was a mere laddie, and I remember her best for her signature song, When The Moon Comes Over The Mountain, which she helped write.

However, most people associate Smith with God Bless America.  Called "the unofficial national anthem," GBA was written in 1918 by composer Irving Berlin, who revised the song in 1938 as war loomed in Europe.  Berlin intended it as a prayer for peace.  Smith was the first to sing the revised song, on her radio show on Armistice Day in 1938.  Many singers have "covered" the song since then, but Smith's rendition remains definitive even today, nearly a quarter-century after her death.  Folk singer Woody Guthrie so detested GBA that in 1940 he composed This Land Is Your Land as a protest.

Not many artists carve out a new career in their 60s, but Kate Smith did just that on Dec. 11, 1969, when someone decided to play a recording of Smith singing God Bless America before a Philadelphia Flyers hockey game.  The Flyers won.  The song was played again from time to time, and over the years people noted that when a game started with Smith's GBA, the Flyers often did well.  That tradition solidified in May 1974 when Smith made a surprise personal appearance to sing GBA before the start of Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals.  Philadelphia beat Boston and clinched the Cup, the first of two consecutive Stanley Cup victories for the Flyers.

Perhaps this is mere superstition, but as of this writing the Smith-Song-Before-the-Game record stands at 87 wins, 23 losses, and 4 ties.  If you had odds like that playing the Lotto, you would be retired in the south of France!  Draw your own conclusions!

The Flyers were sufficiently persuaded of Kate's prowess on the ice that in 1987, the year after her death, they erected a statue of her in front of Spectrum Arena in Philadelphia.  It was beside this statue that Kate Smith's postage stamp was unveiled on May 19, 2010, on the anniversary of her live Stanley Cup performance.

Some countries put up statues of kings and princes and victorious generals on prancing horses — and, admittedly, we Americans have a few of those littering our landscape.  But how characteristic that we should also honor in bronze a chanteuse of such formidable stature and compelling voice. •••