The stage lights flicker. The MAGA faithful whoop at the first tinkle of piano keys. They’ve been here a hundred times. They know what’s coming.
If tomorrow all the things were gone
I’d worked for all my life
And I had to start again
With just my children and my wife
“God Bless the USA” has been through several iterations since it first appeared on Lee Greenwood’s third album, You’ve Got a Good Love Comin’.
It was a Gold-certified single in May 1984 and the soundtrack for a short film about Ronald Reagan, which was shown at that summer’s Republican National Convention. Greenwood performed the song at the 1988 RNC – and it resurged in popularity after the First Gulf War and the 9/11 attacks. Until the 2010s, it served as a paean of right-tinged American unity. But over the past decade or so, it has taken on a new meaning: Donald Trump is about to take the stage.
“I did 16 United Service Organizations tours all around the world. ‘God Bless the USA’ became a military anthem long before it became a national anthem,” says a softly spoken Greenwood. “It was popular among those people who were citizens of America by indoctrination, that would come to America to become citizens. At baseball games and football games, it became a song of spirit, rather than what it is today. As I look back at the past ten or 15 years, and now with the 25th anniversary of 9/11, it’s really become a part of American fiber.”
Henry VIII had the Venetian organist Dionysius Memo. The Sun King Louis XIV had Jean-Baptiste Lully. Trump’s chief court musician is Lee Greenwood, an 83-year-old country singer from California. “I performed all over the world with him,” Greenwood says. “I’ve been allowed the pleasure and the prominence of introducing the President more than 12 times.”
He adds: “When I wrote the phrase, ‘I’m proud to be an American,’ I hadn’t heard a lot of people say they were proud to be just American… Whether you’re an Italian American, a British American, an Australian American, the only people that really have the right to put something in front of ‘American’ would be an African American, who were brought here to this continent, and Indian Americans, who were here long before the white man. Otherwise, everyone else should be an American first. That’s what I wrote that line for.”
Greenwood and Trump first met decades ago through a mutual interest. “My wife and I have been married 34 years. She was Miss Tennessee USA when we met in 1989,” Greenwood says. “For a number of years, she worked for Trump while he owned Miss Universe. Our acquaintance would have been during those years. We weren’t necessarily friends yet, but we certainly were acquaintances. The many times that we would go to pageants together, we’d be sitting near him and have a conversation when he was just a normal American citizen.”
Greenwood met Kimberly (his fourth and current wife) on a USO tour, when he took three pageant queens with him to see the troops almost 40 years ago. “We became very close during that tour,” he says. “Then she finished college, and then we started dating and were married in 1992.”
Greenwood has sung for Trump at the most memorable moments of the President’s political life: for America’s 250th birthday after the thunderstorms; in the heat of the National Mall military parade; at the Madison Square Garden rally; at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, five days after the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“In Milwaukee, we introduced him to the audience. It was electric,” the singer recalls. “He walked in with a bandage on his ear. I waited until he got in position and then I actually spoke from my heart. There was nothing scripted there. It got interesting acclaim from media because they thought that I was scripted as an announcer, but I was not. It was more, ‘I’m talking about my friend here, I’m glad that he’s alive and we hope that he can run the nation again.’”
“It’s an interesting way that I serve the nation and serve the President without being a government employee,” Greenwood says. “I’m kind of an outsider there. I’m not really embedded in Washington. But I serve at the pleasure of the President. And these events that I’ve done for President Trump have drawn a great amount of interest in my career.”
Now in his early eighties, Greenwood is keeping busy. Ever the patriot, he has just relaunched his line of Soldier Valley liquors. He still plays shows across the country. How much does performing for Trump impact his schedule? “It doesn’t really affect anything,” he says. “It really has lifted me up much higher than probably I would be as just a country artist. Sometimes I’m contacted by the White House to let me know where I’m needed and depending on my schedule… I can’t go every time, but I would say 90 percent of the time that I have a schedule that’s clear enough that I could go sing for him in a venue that he prefers.”
‘I’m not really embedded in Washington. But I serve at the pleasure of the President’
“I probably have most audiences from the right and not from the left,” Greenwood concedes, “only because I think they’re a little bit more adamant about anyone that aligns himself with President Trump. But I do have a lot of Democrat friends where that’s not an issue… because they recognize that I am an artist first and a musician and a singer who actually is pretty good at what I do.”
In the next few weeks, Greenwood is due to perform ahead of President Trump’s appearance at the RNC’s “midterm convention” in Texas and at the NASCAR Bass Pro Shops Night Race in Bristol, Tennessee. “I will be with the President in Dallas,” he says, “And probably the next night, which would be 9/11, probably in New York. I understand there’s going to be more than one president in attendance for that event.”
And next year, for the first time since 2003, Greenwood will release new songs – on the Gaither Music label. “I’m actually doing a new gospel album,” he says. “We already got the tracks done. I’ll do the vocals before the end of the year. It’ll be out in the spring. I don’t do much writing anymore… I have a 28-year-old son who is a music producer and engineer, and he has co-written the songs with me.”
Hopefully Greenwood is able to complete his recording schedule alongside his singing duties for the President. After that, at least he’ll know he’s free.
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