Kathryn Elizabeth Smith was an American contralto. Referred to as The First Lady of Radio, Smith became well known for her renditions of "God Bless America" and "When the Moon Comes over the Mountain".
real name: Kathryn Elizabeth Smith
labels: Savoy Records
genres: pop music
awards: Presidential Medal of Freedom, star on Hollywood Walk of Fame
plays: voice
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Smith was born on May 1, 1907, in Greenville, Virginia, to Charlotte 'Lottie' Yarnell (née Hanby) and William Herman Smith, and she grew up in Washington, D.C. Her father owned the Capitol News Company, distributing newspapers and magazines in the greater D.C. area. Smith was the youngest of three daughters, the middle child dying in infancy. She failed to talk until she was four years old, but a year later she was singing at church social events. By the time she was eight, she was singing for the troops at Army camps in the Washington area during World War I. Smith never had a singing lesson in her life and possessed a range of two and a half octaves. Her earliest performances were during amateur nights at vaudeville theaters in D.C.
During Honeymoon Lane's run in New York, Smith made her first phonograph recordings, consisting of songs from that show. The first sessions were for Victor, but none were issued. Her first issued recordings, from an October 28, 1926, session, appeared on the Columbia label. She made a few more records for Columbia through May 1927. In 1929 through 1931 she again returned to Columbia's studios, this time appearing for the budget labels Harmony, Diva and Velvet Tone under a pseudonym. These commercially successful records were often sung in the style of Ethel Waters and Ruth Etting, although others were more akin to the early crooning style of Bing Crosby and Russ Columbo.
Smith did a command performance for King George VI and Queen Elizabeth at the White House on June 8, 1939. She received a Drake University medallion for "outstanding contributions to radio and the people". Smith was inducted posthumously into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1999. She was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2009. In 2010, the U.S. postal service issued a commemorative stamp featuring a duplication of artwork created for the cover of a CD titled Kate Smith: The Songbird of the South. The artwork was based on a photograph of Smith taken in the 1960s.
Underlined songs have their story further down.