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Kate Smith royalties stay local

LAKE PLACID – Adirondack Health is holding onto a share of the royalty rights from Kate Smith’s recordings, including her famous rendition of “God Bless America,” when the hospital group sells Uihlein Living Center to a nursing home company.

A 72-page “Asset Purchase Agreement” between Post Acute Partners, based in Western New York, and Adirondack Health spells out the terms and conditions of the sale of the Old Military Road nursing home, which its soon-to-be owners plan to rename Elderwood of Uihlein at Lake Placid.

Not included in the deal are “all intellectual property and rights, royalties and privileges relating to Kate Smith associated with the song ‘God Bless America.'”

Her will

Known as “the Songbird of the South,” the Virginia-born singer made more than 15,000 radio broadcasts and recorded nearly 3,000 songs during her five-decade career. She is best known for her rendition of Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America.”

A summer resident of Lake Placid, Smith stayed at Uihlein for a period of time after an illness in 1976. When she died 10 years later, her will called for the royalties from her recordings, including “God Bless America,” to go to the nursing home and St. Agnes Catholic Church, which she had attended while living in Lake Placid.

“Her will named St. Agnes and Uihlein as equal co-beneficiaries of her residuary estate,” said lawyer Greg Dennin of Lake Placid, whose father was the attorney for the church and the nursing home at the time Smith’s estate was being settled. “Essentially what was left over were intellectual rights that she held to her productions, her shows – the whole expanse.”

“No gold mine”

The Rev. John Yonkovig, pastor of St. Agnes, said the church gets occasional royalty payments from Sony Music from sales of Smith’s recordings, but only when the amount exceeds $100.

“Her songs don’t generate $100 worth of royalties anymore,” Yonkovig said. “The last check we got, sadly, was back on 9-11, when ‘God Bless America’ was all of a sudden very popular at that tragic moment in American history. A few hundred dollars came in at that time. It’s certainly no gold mine.”

Adirondack Health, however, has continued to get royalty payments, although the amounts haven’t been large.

“It’s not really a huge fund,” said Hannah Hanford, director of the Adirondack Health Foundation, the nonprofit that’s been in charge of the royalties since the hospital bought Uihlein from the Sisters of Mercy in 2007. “Just looking at what we received in 2015, we received three payments: $8.80, $123 and $752.”

Hanford said the foundation got $18,000 in royalty payments in early 2012, which she thinks was tied to the use of “God Bless America” to mark the prior year’s 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The funds were used to start an art therapy program for Uihlein residents, in partnership with BluSeed Studios in Saranac Lake.

Future use

The royalties from Smith’s recordings will continue to support Uihlein residents in the future, even though Adirondack Health is selling the nursing home.

“We’re a nonprofit organization, so we can receive those funds from her will, whereas Elderwood is not,” Hanford said. “In order to continue what we believe is the intention of Kate Smith, which is to support the residents of Uihlein, we’ll continue to hold the royalties in a restricted fund at the foundation. As programs for residents come up, they would ask for funding.”

Dennin said he supports the way Adirondack Health plans to handle the famed singer’s royalties, and he thinks Smith would, too.

“I think that’s in line with what she would want,” he said.

Sports links

Smith’s rendition of “God Bless America” remains a staple at some major sporting events. Since Sept. 11, 2001, it’s been played during the seventh-inning stretch at New York Yankees home baseball games.

The Philadelpha Flyers and Kate Smith have been linked since the late 1960s, when the hockey team started playing her recording of “God Bless America” before their home games. It was seen as a good-luck charm, as the Flyers seemed to win more often when the song was played. Smith performed “God Bless America” in person at several Flyers games in the 1970s, and in 1987, the year after her death, the team put up a statue of her outside the Spectrum, their arena at the time.

At one point, Dennin says he sent the Flyers a letter after he learned the team was using an image of Smith on its arena video screen while playing the song. He said the team didn’t have a right to use that image, but the Flyers argued they could. Dennin said the potential beneficiaries, St. Agnes and Uihlein, ultimately decided it wasn’t worth the money to fight it.

The Flyers continue to play Smith’s version of “God Bless America” occasionally, including twice this season, according to the website flyershistory.com. It says the Flyers’ record it is played is 98 wins, 28 losses and five ties.

“An institution”

At one time, Smith’s recordings and performances were in more demand, Dennin said, but her popularity has waned over the years as her fans have aged and died.

The Syracuse-based Kate Smith Commemorative Society used to hold regular meetings in Lake Placid but hasn’t done so in several years. The society’s website hasn’t been updated in two years, and an email message sent to the group this week hadn’t been returned as of press time.

“It’s a dwindling audience because she’s been gone for a number of years, and the people that followed her are fewer and fewer,” Dennin said. “But she has a significant connection to this community, and in America in general she remains an institution.”

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