Reaction To The Assassination of John F. Kennedy - Tributes Following The Assassination

Tributes Following The Assassination

Tributes to Kennedy abounded in the months following his murder, particularly in the world of recordings. Many individual radio stations released album compilations of their news coverage of Kennedy's assassination; ABC News released a two-LP set of its radio news coverage. Major record labels also released tribute albums; at one point there were at least six Kennedy tribute albums available for purchase in record stores, with the most popular being Dickie Goodman's John Fitzgerald Kennedy: The Presidential Years 1960-1963 (20th Century 3127), which climbed to number eight on the Billboard album chart and stood as the biggest-selling tribute album of all time until the double-CD tribute to Diana, Princess of Wales thirty-four years later .

Two days after the assassination (and one day before the funeral), a special live television program entitled A Tribute to John F. Kennedy from the Arts was broadcast by ABC on network television. The program featured dramatic readings from such actors as Christopher Plummer, Sidney Blackmer, Florence Eldridge, Albert Finney, and Charlton Heston, as well as musical selections performed by such artists as Marian Anderson. Actor Fredric March (Ms. Eldridge's real-life husband) hosted the program. Plummer and Finney performed Hamlet's dying speech (I am dead, Horatio) with Finney taking the role of Horatio. The program has never been repeated, nor has it ever been released on video in any form.

Perhaps the most successful Kennedy tribute song released in the months after his assassination (although later hit songs such as "Abraham, Martin and John" and "We Didn't Start the Fire" also referenced the tragedy) was the controversial "In the Summer of His Years", introduced by British singer Millicent Martin on a special edition of the BBC-TV comedy series That Was the Week That Was, conceived as a somber and respectful tribute to Kennedy. Martin recorded the song soon afterward, and though it was not deemed suitable for single release in the U.K., it was released in the U.S. and "Bubbled Under" the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart at No. 104. A cover version by Connie Francis climbed the Hot 100 chart to number 46 in early 1964 despite being banned by a number of major-market radio stations who felt that capitalizing on a national tragedy was in poor taste. Other versions of the song were recorded by Toni Arden, Kate Smith, Bobby Rydell, and gospel legend Mahalia Jackson.

British heavy metal band Saxon wrote Dallas 1PM as a tribute and the song featured the line, "The world was shocked that fateful day. A young man's life was blown away, at Dallas 1PM". Also in Britain (where the publishers of "In the Summer of His Years" refused to allow the song a single release by any British artist), Joe Meek, composer of The Tornadoes' hit "Telstar", released an instrumental titled "The Kennedy March" on Decca Records, with royalties marked to be sent to Jacqueline Kennedy for her to donate to charity. The Briarwood Singers "Bubbled Under" the Billboard singles chart in December 1963 with a recording of the traditional folk song He Was a Friend of Mine, which was later recorded (with new lyrics written specially by Jim McGuinn) in 1965 by the popular American band, The Byrds, on their second album, Turn! Turn! Turn!. In 1964, songwriter William Spivery penned, "Mr. John," which became popular in the midwestern United States.