Sing of the U.S.A. with Chevrolet

See the U.S.A. in Your Chevrolet
Originally uploaded by Paula Wirth

See the U.S.A. in Your Chevrolet

As an avid collector of sheet music, and lover of old cars, I was excited to find two copies of music put out by General Motors, both with the song “See the U.S.A. in Your Chevrolet.” And they even have ukulele tablature!!

The first printing is from 1948, with a gorgeous cover illustration by Disney artist and illustrator Eyvind Earle.

The second is a thicker booklet from 1964, with a selection of illustrated lyrics from America’s favorite popular songs, as well as an ode to (and advertisements for) Chevrolet. The illustrator is unknown.

View the covers and illustrations for See the U.S.A. in Your Chevrolet…

See and hear Dinah Shore singing the song at the Vintage Chevrolet Archives…

I’m Yours For Tonight

I’m Yours For Tonight
Illustration by ‘Hap’ Hadley
Originally uploaded by Paula Wirth

Of all my ephemera collections, the one I am the most addicted to is my vintage sheet music collection. It’s truly massive.

One of the issues I always had with scanning my collection is that most scanner beds are too small to scan a piece of sheet music in one go. If I wanted a scan with no major cropping, I had to do two scans and tile the piece together in Photoshop. (The same went for large magazine pages, like the Post).

Let me just sing the praises of Photoshop CS3 for a moment. The new Photomerge feature is a godsend. No more must I do all that layering, rotating, color matching, blending and merging by hand — the new feature makes it so easy, and totally seamless. Thanks, Adobe!!! Now I have no excuse for not scanning all my larger pieces!

This gorgeous piece from 1932, I’m Yours For Tonight, with a lovely female closeup paired with a smoking male silhouette, is illustrated by ‘Hap’ Hadley Studio (born Alvan Cordell Hadley).

For more of my collection, see my Vintage Sheet Music set. For more submissions, see the Vintage Sheet Music flickr pool.