Who was the first musician to perform at the White House?
I can’t think of many occasions when music and politics have been blended to good effect. Whether it’s a weary-eyed Noel Gallagher stumbling into Downing Street to usher in the age of Tony Blair’s ‘Cool Britannia’ or Kanye West in the Oval Office shaking hands with Donald Trump in a MAGA hat, it’s long proved that the attempted partnership between the two blends like oil and water.
In fact, art, particularly music, has been at its best when it’s working against politicism. It’s a means of freely criticising societal patterns and bureaucratic systems or, at best, used to give traction to an activist idea.
Nevertheless, the US Presidential office has continued to try to attract musicians to perform at the White House, be it for inaugural ceremonies or public holidays. The performances that seemed to capture the zeitgeist more than most were during Barack Obama’s stewardship, for he quietly became a cultural figurehead, and the publication of his year-round-up playlists was an eagerly awaited event.
During his tenure, the White House hosted what many would argue is the highest-profile musical moment seen in the iconic building’s 224-year-old history. Airing on July 28th, 2010, Paul McCartney: In Performance at the White House was hosted to coincide with McCartney’s acceptance of the ‘Gershwin Prize for Popular Song’. He performed at the event, inviting the likes of Elvis Costello, Dave Grohl, Herbie Hancock, Emmylou Harris, Faith Hill, Jack White and Stevie Wonder to perform alongside him.
While Macca may have put on the biggest show at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, he wasn’t the first contemporary rocker to do it. Rather ironically, that took place during Richard Nixon’s presidential run, which was largely occupied with fending off rock-loving activists who were protesting the Vietnam War.
The youth were exercising their right to protest and using the music of their rock heroes to do it, capturing the hearts of a more liberal and peace-driven generation. Despite his stance on foreign policies, Nixon’s daughter, Tricia, became a huge fan of The Turtles, the Californian band responsible for saccharine pop rock hits like ‘Happy Together’ and ‘Elenore’. In a bid to please her, Nixon booked the band to play at the White House on May 10th, 1969.
Understandably, the band were hesitant, given their stance on Nixon’s politics, but their manager pressed on and had them agree to play. “We were given President Lincoln’s library to use as our dressing room,” frontman Howard Kaylan wrote in the book Shell Shocked. “It was amazing. We were loaded—high from smoking pot back at the hotel and a wee bit tipsy from all the French champagne that was being freely dispensed—and we were roaming around the most important home in America unsupervised.”
Unlike McCartney’s performance, The Turtles show wasn’t aired. But we weren’t the only ones who missed out, as it was reported that Nixon himself wasn’t even present, which, by Kaylan’s own admission, was probably for the best. “I am absolutely positive, considering our states of mind that evening, that I—or some other equally messed-up Turtle—would have given him an earful of our contempt and probably would have ended up in ‘Gitmo’,” he added.
But who was the first ever musician to play at The White House?
But long before the hedonistic days of The Turtles, music of a different kind would echo the halls of America’s most cherished building. In fact, the oncoming disaster of a pot-smoking rock and roll band was largely avoided due to the president’s creation of their very own band.
Founded in 1798 by an Act of Congress, the United States Marine Band is America’s oldest continuously active professional musical organisation, constituting members of the United States Marine Corps. The more relaxed title of “President’s Own” is probably due to their congressional founding but boosted by the fact that they were the first band to play inside the White House.
They played several public concerts for the President in the 18th century but made their official White House Debut on the day of the building’s opening, on New Year’s Day 1801, at a reception thrown by President and First Lady Mrs John Adams.
