What happened this week in 1935?  Jesse Owens set a long jump world record.

"Aside from being pitch perfect in every way, these performers really connected with their characters. I had goose bumps during every single song..."

"The songwriting was excellent...each tune had a memorable melody, thoughtful lyrics, and real emotional integrity"

Read the full article from Rock on Philly here.

"An impressive collaboration between a diverse array of artists and community members..."

"...the ideal of what education should be."

Read the full article from Hidden City here.

"The work has this blend of despondency and ambition that touches the soul."

"...a lesson that...sparing a dime and sharing one’s time serve the same function – the fostering of hope."

Read the full article from the South Philly Review here.

Even though Spare A Dime's performances for the 2013 Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts are complete, we'll be continuing our daily blog posts throughout the festival – and beyond, to May 6, the anniversary of the founding of the Works Progress Administration.

Today, our history Sunday post is particularly appropriate for a musical blog!  On April 20, 1935, "Your Hit Parade" began its radio broadcasts.  Every Saturday night, the show reviewed the top 15 songs of the week, both by song purchase data (including sales of records and sheet music) and by audience surveys. The earliest format involved a presentation of the top 15 songs. The show popularized the idea of a countdown to the top three finalists and featured a performance of the number one song as a finale.  Since the show was sponsored by Lucky Strike cigarettes, songs not on the top fifteen list (including past favorites and popular standards) were performed as "Lucky Strike Extras."  The show stayed on the radio until 1950 when it moved to television for an additional nine year run.

The paradigm
of Spare A Dime
finds parallels of place and time,
the mystery
of history
repeating, and we hope you'll see
true Liberty
finds unity
of purpose in community.
Rise or fall, we'll always be
together, indivisibly.

A big shout out and our deepest gratitude to the fantastic cast, musicians, and crew of Spare A Dime, and to all of the project's community participants.  You define the very essence of the power of art to transform lives.  Thank you.

Illustrations by artist Steve Teare animated by designer Gerardo McGarity-Alegrett create projected backdrops for Spare A Dime singers, while photographic replicas by city residents create visual counterparts to audio stories.  We call this corner store our dimestore, where the character of The Merchant sings Pocket of Blues, a song describing the Great Depression.  The Builder later joins her here to sing a duet, Change in the Making – look for a WPA poster to appear in the window!

Join us for Spare A Dime on April 18, 19, and 20, 2013! 
Get your tickets today!

As visual counterparts to the audio stories played in-between each song of the Spare A Dime cycle, COSACOSA constituents from around the city recreated the historical photos on which each character is based.  Above, William Hilton, master craftsman and builder from North Philadelphia's Nicetown-Tioga neighborhood, recreates the historical stance of The Builder from Spare A Dime (before the founding of the Works Progress Administration, of course).   Check back tomorrow to see his recreation of the post-WPA image of The Builder.  And get your tickets to Spare A Dime today at www.pifa.org/events/10!

Early radar systems could locate aircraft from a distance of 8 miles; by the start of World War II that range had increased twelve-fold. Radar proved to be a important tool for the British Royal Air Force to defend against attacks from the German Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain. After the attack of Pearl Harbor in 1941, Watson-Watt helped the United States develop its own radar defenses.  A direct descendent of James Watt, creator of the steam engine, Watson-Watt literally was a born inventor.

American scientist Robert H. Goddard, Ph.D. (1882-1945) is considered the father of modern rocketry.  From his early patents for staged rockets using liquid propellants, to his design of the Bazooka rocket launcher during World War I, Goddard was at the forefront of rocket science.  When in 1920, the Smithsonian Institution published his writings describing flights to the moon, the press publicly derided his ideas.  Goddard eventually left the public eye and his post at Clark University to continue his work, in silence, in Roswell, New Mexico.  

Supported by Charles Lindbergh and the Guggenheim family, Goddard worked alone with his wife Esther as secretary, photographer, and lab assistant.  In March of 1935, Goddard successfully launched a liquid propellant rocket that broke the speed of sound  at 700 miles per hour.  Later that month, on March 28, 1935, his rocket, stabilized and controlled by a gyroscope, reached an altitude of 7,500 feet.  Its instrument package was even safely returned to the launch site via a parachute recovery system Goddard designed. 

Goddard's rockets became bigger and flew higher. Ten years later, by the end of World War II, the United States government established the White Sands Proving Grounds at Roswell; in 1945, missiles reached heights of over 40 miles.  Though Goddard died that year, he prescienctly predicted, "I feel we are going to enter a new era, it is just a matter of imagination how far we can go with rockets. I think it is fair to say you haven’t seen anything yet ... It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow.”  NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland was established in honor of this physicist-pioneer in 1959.

This week on the Spare A Dime blog, we'll be featuring members of the jazz ensemble accompanying our vocalists.  But first, let's get in the mood of the era with a list of the top artists and songs from 1935!

How many do you know?

Louis Armstrong: I'm In The Mood For Love, You Are My Lucky Star
Fred Astaire: Cheek To Cheek, No Strings, The Piccolino, Top Hat, White Tie and Tails
Gene Autry: Ole Faithful, Tumbling Tumbleweeds
Boswell Sisters: The Object of my Affection
Al Bowlly and the Ray Noble Orchestra: 
Blue Moon
Cab Calloway: Keep That Hi-De-Hi in Your Soul  (pictured above)
The Carter Family: Can The Circle Be Broken
Tom Coakley and his Palace Hotel Orchestra: East of the Sun, West of the Moon
Bing Crosby: I Wished The Moon, It's Easy To Remember, Red Sails in the Sunset, Soon
Bob Crosby and his Orchestra: In a Little Gypsy's Tea Room
Xavier Cugat: Begin the Beguine, The Lady In Red
The Dorsey Brothers: Chasing Shadows, Lullaby of Broadway
Tommy Dorsey: On Treasure Island
Eddie Duchin: Cheek To Cheek, I Won't Dance, Lovely To Look At, You Are My Lucky Star
Irene Dunne: Lovely To Look at
Nelson Eddie: Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life
Duke Ellington: In a Sentimental Mood
Sleepy John Estes: Stop That Thing
Ruth Etting: Life Is A Song
George Formby: Fanlight Fanny
Benny Goodman: Blue Moon, King Porter Stomp
Glen Gray: Blue Moon, When I Grow Too Old To Dream
Richard Himber and his Orchestra: Just One Of Those Things
Little Jack Little: I'm In The Mood For Love
Guy Lombardo: I'm Sittin' High on a Hill Top, Red Sails In The Sunset, What's The Reason
Jimmy Lunceford: Rhythm Is Our Business
Ethel Merman: I Get A Kick Out Of You
Patsy Montana and the Prairie Ramblers: I Want To Be A Cowboy's Sweetheart
Carmen Miranda: Sonho de Papel
Ozzie Nelson and his Orchestra: And Then Some
Ray Noble: Isle of Capri, Let's Swing It, Paris in the Spring
Cole Porter: You're The Top
Leo Reisman: I Got Plenty O' Nuttin', It Ain't Neccessarily So
Riley-Farley Orchestra: The Music Goes Round and Round
Ballew Smith: Roll Along, Prairie Moon
Shirley Temple: On The Good Ship Lollipop
Fats Waller: A Little Bit Independent, I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself A Letter,
Lulu's Back In Town, Truckin'
Western Brothers: We're Frightfully BBC
Victor Young: She's a Latin From Manhattan