Larchmont's Anderson Book Shop Hosts Book Signing with Local Author Marc Ferris

The following announcement is from Anderson Book Shop and Johns Hopkins University Press:

Marc Ferris, author of Star-Spangled Banner: The Unlikely Story of America’s National Anthem, will host a book signing and musical performance at Anderson’s Book Shop in Larchmont, New York, on November 20, 2014 at 6:00 pm. Refreshments will be served.

Ferris, who grew up two miles from the bookstore in Scarsdale, has contributed hundreds of articles to The New York Times and Newsday and earned a Master of Arts in History at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. A singer and guitar player, he has arranged original versions of the national anthem, including a bluegrass rendition, along with several other songs chronicled in the book. Special guest John Giriat will perform on banjo.

Released this year in conjunction with the song’s 200th anniversary, Star-Spangled Banner (Johns Hopkins University Press), the first narrative history of the anthem, is in its second printing.

Many books detail the remarkable events surrounding the composition’s creation by Francis Scott Key, but this one tells the rest of the story and extends through the present day. Anyone who reads it will never hear the anthem the same way again.

Few Americans know that:

- Shakespeare coupled the words “star” and “spangled” in two of his plays.

- The original song to which Key fused his words is indeed a paean to the joys of music, sex and drinking.

- One of the greatest ironies in U. S. history is that a slave-holding southerner whose entire family supported the Confederacy wrote the Northern anthem (“The Star-Spangled Banner”) while an anti-slavery Northerner wrote the Southern anthem (“Dixie”).

- Anyone carrying U. S. currency has a piece of The Star-Spangled Banner in his or her pocket or purse: the government printed the phrase “In God We Trust,” adapted from a line in the song’s fourth verse, “In God Is Our Trust,” printing it on coins beginning in the Civil War and on paper bills since 1957.

Called “fascinating” by Baltimore magazine and a “fun, fact-filled read” by the Carroll County Times, the book has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, the Associated Press and Parade magazine. The author has appeared on MSNBC, WBAL and Fox News Channel.

A non-partisan treatment of a potentially controversial topic, the book covers an array of interesting events regarding the one tune just about every American knows:

1. Of all the other rivals, how did this song become the national anthem? People may revere the tune due to its stature, but they also love to complain about its supposed difficulty to sing, the unmemorable words of the first verse (there are four) and its alleged militarism, among other gripes.

2. Why did it take 117 years for Congress to pass legislation designating the song as the national anthem?

3. What factors led Congress to act in 1931? On appearance, it would seem to be a contrived attempt to bind the nation during the depression through patriotism, but the real story is much more complicated.

It also dispels many myths surrounding the anthem. In part, Francis Scott Key is partly to blame for this lack of knowledge.

Myth 1: Key wrote a poem that someone else later matched with the melody of a song that originated in England called “To Anacreon in Heaven.”

Myth 2: Key first called his poem “The Defence of Fort M’Henry.”

Myth 3: The song is war-like.

Myth 4: The Star-Spangled Banner” first aired at a sporting event during the 1918 World Series.

Myth 5: Jimi Hendrix played the first controversial version of the song at Woodstock in 1969.

Anderson’s Book Shop – 96 Chatsworth Avenue, Larchmont, NY

For information about the Star-Spangled Book Sign and Sing, to be held on November 20, 2014 at 6:00 pm, please call 914-834-6900. http://andersonsbooksny.com