Flying Baritone from Fairbanks pens iconic song

Gold miners in 1906 Fairbanks passed a fur cap for contributions to give the 7-year-old warbler. His only number was "In The Good Old Summer Time," but it pleased the whiskered sourdoughs in the frontier town.

That was the beginning of a career that took the little singer far. Robert MacArthur Crawford grew up to become a professor of music, conductor of the Newark Symphony Orchestra and guest soloist for the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. But his most enduring claim to fame came in the late 1930s when he composed the words and music for the U.S. Army Air Corps song, "Off We Go Into The Wild Blue Yonder."

Born in Dawson, Yukon Territory, during 1899, he and his family moved to the new gold camp of Fairbanks where Bob's musical talents blossomed with the opening of miners' pokes. He decided early on that he wanted to be a musician-a violinist, at first.

Bob ordered an instrument from a mail order house, but under the teaching of Fairbanks' musician Vic Durand, he turned his attention to the piano and composing. His musical composition ability soon became evident when he wrote the words and music for a song titled "My Northland."

An energetic youngster, Bob sold newspapers to earn money during the early 1900s as he knew he wanted to continue his education Outside. A construction job on the Alaska Railroad, and another job at a service station, earned him enough for one year at Princeton University. While studying at Princeton, he also took part in many extra-curricular activities and started the Princeton University Orchestra. For seven years, he directed and orchestrated the music of the annual Triangle Show and demand for his baritone voice grew.

The young musician developed another passion during this time-aviation. He piloted his bride around Alaska on their honeymoon, and then flew back to Fairbanks in 1936, bringing light opera soprano Ruby Mercer with him. They presented a concert in the old Empress Theatre, with Don Adler as piano accompanist.

Crawford's love for flying and the wild, blue yonder prompted him to enter a contest to find a song for the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1937.

More than 750 compositions flooded the volunteer committee. But committee members found no songs that satisfied them.

So Asst. Chief of the Air Corps Brig. Gen. Hap Arnold, who took over command of the Air Corps in 1938, solicited direct inquiries from contestants-including Irving Berlin. But no new creations proved worthy, either.

Then, just before the July 1939 deadline, Crawford entered his song. It fit the bill and the committee unanimously voted it as the winner.

Crawford, known by now as the "Flying Baritone," was handed the $1,000 first-place prize at the 1939 National Air races in Cleveland, Ohio. He then stepped to the microphone and sang the song for the first time in public.

Hundreds of top military and civilian celebrities attending the Aviation Banquet stood and applauded the song that epitomized the cocky determination and enthusiasm of the men who became World War II fliers-including Crawford, who joined the Air Corps at the outbreak of the war and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel.

This column features tidbits found while researching Alaska's colorful past for Aunt Phil's Trunk, a five-book Alaska history series written by Laurel Downing Bill and her late aunt, Phyllis Downing Carlson. The books are available at bookstores and gift shops throughout Alaska, as well as online at http://www.auntphilstrunk.com.