MARCHING ALONG
Recollections of Men, Women and Music

John Philip Sousa

VG+/VG+. Jacket in mylar protector. Small bookplate of previous owner on upper left corner of front pastedown (hidden by jacket flap). SIGNED & DATED (1930) AUTOGRAPH OF SOUSA on card pasted to front flyleaf. (Boston: Hale, Cushman & Flint, 1941). "Popular Edition". 21 photographs, including frontispiece. Checklist of Sousa's Works (overtures, operas, suites, songs, waltzes, marches, fantasies, miscellaneous compositions, books, verses, etc. Index, 384 pages. An exceptionally nice copy.

"More than builders of empire, more than presidents and statesmen, John Philip Sousa epitomizes the spirit that is America's, for he made that spirit articulate, made it throb in the hearts of generations of Americans b;y the martial strains of his name."
~~~ Modestly and simply he tells his life-story, full-flavored with incident and anecdote, with mellow humor and kindly wisdom; how ;by using well the genius entrusted to him he won success and happiness in ministering to one of the finer attributes of human nature -- the love of good music.
~~~ At 15 he was a teacher of violin; at 17 a conductor of operettas; at 26 a national figure as the director of the United States Marine Band. For 36 years he was the dominating spirit of Sousa's Band on tours at home, in Europe and around the world. An expert trap-shooter, the author of several novels, a composer of world-wide renown, he was commissioned a lieutenant, senior grade, in the United States Navy on May 31, 1917, and served, at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station and elsewhere, until the end of the World War, retiring with the rank of Lieutenant-Commander, USNRF.
~~~ In the first edition of Marching Along, published in 1928, he said: "Inevitably there will come a time when I shall be too feeble to serve my public longer." The time never came, for he died as he would have wished, "in business." On March 5, 1932, he went to Reading, Pennsylvania, as guest conductor to rehearse a local band for its 80th anniversary concert. After the rehersal he attended a civic dinner in his honor and made a brief speecdh. Early on the morning of March 6th he died unexpectedly in his room at the Abraham Lincoln Hotel. His body was taken to Washington, where it lay in state until his burial in the Congressional cemetary.
~~~ During those last four years of his memorable life, he was still the undisputed "March King." In 1929, after having repeatedly refused to conduct his band over the radio, he was persuaded to lead a selected group of his musicians in a series of one-hour concerts. On April 26, 1930 he led the Marine Band in his new "Royal Fusiliers March" at a dinner of the Gridiron Club in Washington, and in January, 1931 he revealed that he was setting to music a poem by Edgar Allan Poe. In November of that same year, on his 77th birthday, he stood before the microphone to lead a large band in "The Stars & Stripes Forever" on a nationwide network, cut a birthday cake given by five noted conductors, and told the radio audience that he wanted to live to be a hundred so that he could write many more marches.
~~~ This is far more than a book for music-lovers alone. Sousa's many-sidedness is revealed throughout its pages: his struggles, triumphs, associations with artists, actors and sportsmen, with presidents and kins -- the half-century career of "a man who won the affection of his country by his genius for music and his genius for friendsjh

A hardcover edition by Reprint Services (library binding, no dust jacket) is currently in print at $79. All other editions currently OUT OF PRINT.

$495.00