About this project

Kay Kemble (1911-1989) is a character invented for this project. Kay sang on radio commercials as a child and went on to lead Big Bands and swing ensembles in the 30's and 40's. She worked at Scott Air Field as a WAAC enlistee and a civilian. She produced war bond rallies, and her all-female band promoted a popular shampoo brand. In the 80's there was renewed interest in Kay's musical career.

Kay informally adopted the orphaned niece and nephew of her partner Wilmetta "Teeny" Stockton, and in the early 70's the family moved from St. Louis to New Orleans. After Kay and Teeny's deaths, family members remained in New Orleans until displaced by Hurricane Katrina. In 2014, I arranged to archive, organize, and restore Kay's memorabilia. Most items were damaged due to age, hurried packing , and lack of funds for formal archiving.

I've "become" Kay in reproduction radio broadcasts, and created artifacts to represent damaged or destroyed items in the collection.



Sunday, February 9, 2020

Kay's change of heart toward Woody Guthrie

Along with Burl Ives, Sonny Terry, Cisco Houston, Will Geer, and Lee Hays, Woody Guthrie acted, played the guitar and sang in a radio production called "The Martins and the Coys," which had a "hillbilly" theme. The radio play featured the song "All You Fascists Bound to Lose."



As mentioned previously in this blog, Kay was dubious about folk singers in general and about the Almanac Singers (Woody was a member) in particular. This was all about anti-war and anti-draft songs The Almanac Singers put out at a time when Kay was working at a military airfield before the United States entered the Second World War. 


But Kay changed her mind when Woody Guthrie joined up and the Almanac Singers abandoned their anti-draft, anti-FDR, isolationist stance and began working actively against the Fascist movement rising in Europe even before the war. 

  It was the radio play "The Martins and the Coys" which won Kay over toward Woody Guthrie, and she was very impressed with  "All You Fascists Bound to Lose."
at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)