Yankee Doodle and other Dandys

We hope you saved some sparklers and Roman candles from Canada Day to light up the sky on the Glorious Fourth.

And we hope you're set to celebrate with grilled burgers and loaded hotdogs, corn on the cob and fried chicken, a chilled brew, and perhaps a bourbon Old Fashioned. For dessert, consider this: a Fourth of July cake, created by Erin McDowell, iced and decorated to represent the US flag, with blueberries as stars and raspberries as stripes.

The two names that come to mind (our mind, anyway) on this day are Louis Armstrong and George M. Cohan, both of whom claimed to have been born on the Fourth of July. Which may not be entirely  accurate, but as the newspaper editor says in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

We can't imagine better music for the day than the recordings made between 1926 and 1929 by Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven, groups that included Kid Ory, Johnny Dodds, Zutty Singleton, Lil Hardin Armstrong, and even Earl Hines. Sip that Old Fashioned and listen to "Struttin' with Some Barbecue."

Cohan wrote "Yankee Doodle Dandy," and you can see James Cagney playing him on film, doing his own fine struttin'. If you don't want to sit through the full movie, turn to YouTube to see Cagney dance, in a way no one else ever has.

Then you, too, will be ready to sing:

"I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy,
 Yankee Doodle do or die,
 A real live nephew of my Uncle Sam,
 Born on the Fourth of July."

A glorious Fourth to all, and especially those linked forever to Bad Axe, Michigan.