Category: Music
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Gene McCarthy: Kefauver’s Kind of Candidate?
In 1968, Kefauver’s daughters backed the Minnesota Senator’s insurgent bid for the White House. Would their father have done the same?
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Sing Along With Keef Addendum: “Estes”
Although Hank Fort leveraged her Kefauver campaign song to launch herself to fame, she stayed loyal to her home state… and her favorite Senator.
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Sing Along with Keef, Part 3: “The Long, Tall Guy in the Coonskin Cap”
This is a story about one of Kefauver’s campaign songs. But it’s although the story of the plucky Nashville songwriter who leveraged the song’s success to become a D.C. society queen,
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Thank God I’m A Country Boy: Kefauver’s Musical Connection
Throughout his career, Estes Kefauver used country music to connect with people and promote his campaigns. Like Kefauver himself, it may not have impressed the powerful, but it hit home with regular people.
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Porcine Populism: The Presidential Campaigns of Henry Krajewski
Kefauver wasn’t the only 1950s presidential hopeful who came up short. There was also Krajewski, the New Jersey pig farmer and bar owner, whose views were a little… different.
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Sing Along With Keef, Part 2: “Senator From Tennessee”
Estes Kefauver’s probe of organized crime turned him into a national hero, and inspired movies, TV shows… and even songs. Here’s a song that speaks to Kefauver’s crime-busting reputation.
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Sing Along with Keef: “Estes Is Bestes”
The song most associated with Kefauver was “The Tennessee Waltz,” for better or for worse (and definitely for worse after a long campaign). But there’s a long-forgotten campaign song that captures his folk-hero appeal.
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Boom!
The transcripts of the organized crime hearings include a reference to a then-current pop song. Check out the song here, but beware: it’s a real earworm.
Estes Kefauver for President 