This songwriter blessed America

KATE SMITH turned “God Bless America” into such a clarion call for love of country in 1938 that efforts arose to have it replace “The Star-Spangled Banner” as the national anthem.

But composer Irving Berlin, renowned for his patriotism, wouldn’t have it. Instead he donated the song’s copyright, a gesture that has contributed more than $10 million to the Boy and Girl Scouts of America.

“It really tells you about Berlin,” says David Leopold, who relates the incident in his new book, “Irving Berlin’s Show Business,” a comprehensive history of the musical icon’s work. “He was a sincere patriot, not a fellow who was using patriotism to further his career.”

Yet the song’s status as informal anthem endures: On Sept. 11, 2001, members of Congress were moved to sing “God Bless America,” impromptu, on the Capitol steps.

Leopold packs his book with anecdotes, timelines, photographs -- many rarely or never published -- and other Berlin memorabilia.

One of the “most remarkable” things in the book, Leopold said by telephone from Pennsylvania, is a Diego Rivera painting commissioned for a sheet music cover that was never used because it depicted interracial couples.

A yellowed newspaper clipping rails against the “insanity” of ragtime and calls Berlin’s 1911 hit, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” a public menace.

Sheet music covers and show posters depict the chronology and visual iconography of the long career of former singing waiter Izzy Baline, the Russian immigrant who became a giant in Broadway and film.

Leopold details the history behind such evergreens as “Always,” “There’s No Business Like Show Business” and “White Christmas,” among more than 800 published Berlin songs.

Berlin’s “Blue Skies” helped usher in the talkies when Al Jolson sang it on film in 1927’s “The Jazz Singer.” His musicals “Annie Get Your Gun,” “Top Hat” and “Easter Parade” are enduring stage and film classics.

As Jerome Kern said: “Irving Berlin has no place in American music. Irving Berlin is American music.”

“The fact is,” Leopold says, “the whole history of the Broadway musical and the film musical, it’s Berlin’s story.” Whether they involve Tin Pan Alley, the Ziegfeld Follies, Fred Astaire, Judy Garland or Ethel Merman, “there are all these signature moments that we can summon up. And all of a sudden, you realize that their shared connection is ... Irving Berlin songs.”