God Bless The USA / U.S. Army Band & Chorus

Joseph Wilcox Jenkins (Composer), Randall Thompson (Composer), Philip Egner (Composer), G. S. Scofield (Composer), Various Composers (Composer), Lee Greenwood (Composer), Morton Gould (Composer), Edwin Eugene Bagley (Composer), Samuel A. Ward (Composer), Mark [Composer] Taylor (Composer), George William Warren (Composer), John Philip Sousa (Composer), United States Army Band (Performer), US Army Band (Performer), James Burchfiel (Performer), Robert McDonald (Performer), Steve Cramer (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: United States Army Band, US Army Band, James Burchfiel, Robert McDonald, Steve Cramer
• Composer: Joseph Wilcox Jenkins, Randall Thompson, Philip Egner, G. S. Scofield, Various Composers, et al.
• Audio CD (February 16, 1999)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Altissimo Records
• ASIN: B00000HXMJ
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #275,547 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Fine Band Concert, August 22, 2001

By 

Walter Mitty (USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: God Bless The USA / U.S. Army Band & Chorus (Audio CD)

This CD captures the spirit of that soon to be lost bit of authentic Americana--the band concert on the village green. As a saxophonist with nearly thirty years' of concerts and parades under his belt, I can tell you that this is a fine and very enjoyable concert!

The playing is outstanding, the men's chorus exactly as it should be, and the selection of music will be familiar to anyone who spent an evening under the stars listening to the local musicians play Sousa and other crowd-pleasing, but not hackneyed favorites as found on this album.

The only flaw I detected is a change to the lyrics of the title song, Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA". In a bow to political correctness, the line "and I won't forget the MEN who died, to keep that right for me" was altered to a gender-neutered "the ONES who died...".

Let's face it--of the millions of American war-dead, only a small handful were female. Am I the last remaining American to understand that a man fights not because he wants to, but because he understands that it is his manly duty to fight? By neutering a "man" into a "one", to please the tender sensibilities of an academic feminist, we insult those men who gave their lives that their womenfolk, among others, might live in freedom.

I say that stinks. The Army ought to know better.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nice CD - but some drawbacks, May 3, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: God Bless The USA / U.S. Army Band & Chorus (Audio CD)

I like this CD - but it has both strong and weak points. The strong point is the excellent U.S. Army Chorus - their all male voicing is perfect for this kind of repertoire. The weak point of this disc is the limited repertoire and the inconsistency of the quality throughout the disc. My understanding is that these Allegro recordings are essentially legal pirates of music which the military itself is not permitted to sell to the public. Through a quirk in the law - Allegro gathers whatever free recordings it can find of the military ensembles and repackages them for sale to the public. The result is a rather paltry selection of music of varying quality (since the recordings contained on this disc were not intended for commercial release on a CD). After listening to this disc I am convinced that the best choral recording of the entire patriotic repertoire is the newly released "Spirit of Freedom" by the Washington Men's Camerata (on the Gothic label).

5.0 out of 5 stars God Bless This Album, October 10, 2008

By 

Eric M. Scism - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: God Bless The USA / U.S. Army Band & Chorus (Audio CD)

God bless this album. This country was founded on the blessings of god and this album will make you feel the glory of that blessing. The melodies bring thoughts the amazing landscape that make up the country. Its perfect whenever you need to be reminded of the blessings of the USA.