We dig into the secret sauce that makes 'Stars and Stripes Forever' a July 4 hit

What did Americans do before they twerked, twisted, hully-gullied, moonwalked, strolled, shimmied, madisoned, cha-cha'd, charlestoned, lindy-hopped, nae-naed, or did it Gangnam Style?

They marched.

Marches weren't just for July 4, with its usual array of parades and bandstand concerts. Marches were for all occasions.

Before there was hip-hop, rock, jazz, marches were the popular music. That era, which peaked around 1900, is recalled in the Broadway show "The Music Man."

But there are marches, and there are Sousa marches. And there are Sousa marches, and the march supreme — the one tune guaranteed to get audiences on its feet cheering, stamping, whistling, clapping, waving the flag and calling for more.

As late as 1976, "The Stars and Stripes Forever" was cited as possibly "the greatest piece of music ever written by an American" by Harold C. Schonberg, music critic of The New York Times. For years, it was certainly the most popular.

The grand finale

"What would you play in its place? I don't know," said Chris Wilhjelm, music director and conductor of the New Jersey Wind Symphony, which will be playing its second annual "Bergen County Star-Spangled Spectacular" Independence Day Concert on July 4 at the Overpeck County Park bandshell (pre-concert activities begin at 3 p.m.).

A live bald eagle named Lincoln will do a flyover during the "Festival Prelude on a National Air." An historic D-day plane will do an 80th anniversary flyover during "Hymn to the Fallen." There will be — among many other things — American songbook tunes, a Glenn Miller medley, and a tribute to the U.S. armed forces with associated service tunes. And for the kitchen sink: Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture," complete with live cannon from the New York State 9th Infantry Regiment.

What could possibly top that?

"The Stars and Stripes Forever," that's what. It's always last.

"It's not like something else could go there," Wilhjelm said. "It's just a unique and exciting march. People throng to it."

By the time he wrote it, in 1896, John Philip Sousa was already famous. The son of a German mother and Portuguese father, he'd begun his career in the United States Marine Band (his father had been a trombonist there) and in 1892 formed his own civilian band. They gave their first performance in New Jersey — at the long-gone Stillman Music Hall in Plainfield.

"It is a little bit of Jersey pride," Wilhjelm said. "New York was his ultimate goal. This was his warmup."

Remember when Sousa was popular

The Sousa Band is inaccurately remembered today. Not least by "The Music Man's" Harold Hill, who talks about the great day "John Philip Sousa...came marching into town." Meredith Willson, the writer of "The Music Man" — who himself had been a flutist in Sousa's band — knew better. The Sousa band almost never marched. Perhaps eight times in 40 years.

What they were, really, was the nation's premier pops orchestra. They gave concerts, with Sousa as the superstar conductor — the prototype of Arthur Fiedler and John Williams. Typically, the programs consisted of "light classical" music — with Sousa's thundering marches thrown in, at intervals, as a treat.

"They were a reward or candy to the audiences for listening to the classical pieces," said Dr. Jerry Rife, for 39 years conductor and musical director of Somerset County's Blawenburg Band, established in 1890 — by all accounts the oldest continuously performing community band in New Jersey.

Will they be performing "The Stars and Stripes Forever" this holiday season?

Does Yankee Doodle wear a feather in his cap? "I've conducted about 1,200 concerts with the Blawenburg Band, and it's been on most of them," Rife said. You can catch them at Hopewell Park, 19 W. Broad Street, Hopewell, at 7 p.m. July 15 and 29.

"It's recognized as the musical symbol of America worldwide," Rife said. "Eugene Ormandy took the Philadelphia Orchestra to China for the first time in 1973. He programmed all the great American music, and the Chinese applauded politely. Then he concluded with 'Stars and Stripes Forever' and they went ballistic. He had to play it three times. That's the mark of an international masterwork, by a master composer. It's a national treasure, really."

Sousa was 'the march king'

Sousa was "the march king," long before he wrote the king of marches.

"Semper Fidelis" (1888), "The Washington Post March" (1889), "The Thunderer" (1889) and "The Liberty Bell March" (1893, now familiar to us as the "Monty Python" theme) had all been hits before "The Stars and Stripes Forever" was composed — in his head — on Christmas Day 1896, on an ocean liner headed back from Europe.

"He was pacing the deck of the ship, and he was overcome with these feelings of homesickness," said Col. Michael J. Colburn, former director of the "President's Own" United States Marine Band (Sousa's old outfit) and a spokesman for the John Philip Sousa Foundation.

"He said he was struck by this image of the American flag flying over the White House, from his days of directing the Marine Band," Colburn said. "This was the image that was in his mind. He felt the inspiration of this march came from God."

"Stars and Stripes Forever" got a thunderous reception at its May 14, 1897 premiere, at the Philadelphia Academy of Music. It was the right music at the right time.

"When Sousa was writing marches, the U.S. was an up-and-coming nation," Wilhjelm said. "Around the time of the Spanish American War, we were just coming into our own, just feeling our oats."

Flag waving, patriotic bluster, were in style. And marches were the rock-and-roll of their day — music you didn't need a college degree to appreciate. As the happy lowbrow in a 1904 George M. Cohan song put it:

"I want to hear a Yankee Doodle tune — played by a military band.I want to hear a Yankee Doodle tune — the only music I can understand."

In the same period, a new technology, sound recording, allowed music to be spread on cylinders and disks. "The Stars and Stripes Forever" was one of the first bestsellers of the gramophone age. Within 11 years of its first performance, there were 18 different recordings issued: Sousa conducted eight of them. And it was also a hit as sheet music.

"It was arranged for as many as 18 different musical combinations," Rife said. "For zither, mandolin, piano four hands and six hands, for banjo. You could go out and buy it for 40 cents and learn it on your banjo."

Vaudeville performers incorporated it into their act. Ragtime composer Eubie Blake brought down the house with his syncopated piano version.

Circus bands adopted it — with a morbid twist. Among circus folk it was known as The Disaster March. Never to be played, except in case of emergency. It kept the crowd happy, while signaling to the staff that it was All Hands On Deck. It was playing during the great Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Baily circus fire on July 6, 1944, in Hartford, Conn. For at least 168 spectators, it was the last music they ever heard.

And of course, Sousa's own band couldn't finish a concert without it.

"The first time they played it it was a big hit, and they kept playing it, and it got to the point where they had to play it," Wilhjelm said. "The audiences expected it. They called it out. He couldn't go anywhere without it. It became their concert encore. When you heard 'Stars and Stripes Forever,' no matter how many encores there had been, that was it."

Secret sauce for 'Stars and Stripes Forever'

So what is it about "Stars and Stripes Forever" that makes it so irresistibly toe-tappy?

Well, it has a great melody, for starters. Or rather, three great melodies.

The third strain is the most famous. Instantly recognizable, and sing-able, whether you sing Sousa's own lyrics ("Hurrah for the flag of the free — May it wave as our standard forever") or the parody lyrics kids learned on the playground ("Be kind to our web-footed friends — For a duck may be somebody's mother").

But that tune is preceded by two others, equally delectable. And in between the sections, there 's a dramatic bridge — known among musicians as "the dogfight" — in which brass and woodwinds battle it out, and skyrockets of melody shoot into the upper register and plummet back to earth. Actual fireworks — with which this march is frequently accompanied — are almost redundant.

But the real pièce de résistance of this particular march is the counterpoint.

The first time we hear "Hurrah for the flag of the free," the melody is unadorned. Then comes the dogfight. Then comes a refrain — with the piccolos adding a delightful filigree, a layer of musical gingerbread, in the upper register. Then comes another dramatic dogfight. And then — for the grand finale — the two layers of melody are joined by a third, in the brass.

Sousa later said the three sections were meant to represent the three regions of the country: The North, The South, and The West. Many bands choregraph the performance — with the woodwinds and brass, each in turn, walking to the front of the stage when their moment arrives.

Study in contrast

The counterpoint, says Brian Timmons, is actually the hardest thing for his student musicians to master. Getting the correct balance, between each of the sections.

"I think the piece overall is an exercise in contrasts," said Timmons, director of the Bergenfield High School Marching Band since 2000. He has conducted "Stars and Stripes Forever" time without number. It's part of the curriculum, as it is for most school bands.

"There's the contrast in dynamics, and the volumes of the different sections," Timmons said. "The biggest challenge for me, in any march, is this idea of the students always wanting to overplay. There are so many more delicate moments that need to be brought out. It's really kind of dealing with this misconception that marches need to be loud and bombastic. There are so many delicate moments and nuances that can be brought to them."

How well he's taught them can be judged by the fact that several of his students have gone on to the John Philip Sousa National High School Honor Band, a summer intern program conducted by Col. Colburn himself.

This year, French Horn players Joseph Hernandez and Brian Marquez were so honored, along with Timmons' own son, trumpeter Declan Timmons. One previous year, his daughter Alanna (she plays bassoon) also got the nod.

"They get to play in a band with a direct lineage to John Philip Sousa," he said. "It's a wonderful thing."

Go...

"Bergen County Star-Spangled Spectacular" with the New Jersey Wind Symphony. 7 p.m., July 4. Overpeck County Park Amphitheater, 40 Fort Lee Rd, Leonia (pre-concert activities begin at 3 p.m.) Food vendors and a beer tent on site. Free admission. Bring a blanket or chair.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Why this July 4 song by John Philip Sousa is a perennial favorite