The Daily Signal - #469: Singer Mary Millben Shares Her Love of Patriotic Music (Listen to Her Perform, Too)

Episode Date: May 26, 2019

Today we are featuring an interview with singer and actress Mary Millben, who has performed for three U.S. presidents and whose music is featured in the new film, “The Meanest Man in Texas.”Also on the show:• In honor of Memorial Day, we remember those who gave their lives in service to this nation. We replay President Ronald Reagan’s 1986 Memorial Day speech delivered at Arlington National Cemetery.• Virginia Allen has a good news story celebrating American heroes who sacrifice so much for our freedom.The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Monday, May 27th. I'm Rob Lue. And I'm Virginia Allen. Today, we are featuring Rob's interview with singer and actress Mary Milbin, who has performed for three U.S. presidents and whose music is featured in the new film, The Meanest Man in Texas. We are also sharing President Ronald Reagan's 1986 Memorial Day speech, delivered at Arlington National Cemetery.

On this day, we honor the memory of those who gave their lives and service to this nation. Before we begin, we'd like to ask you to help us spread the word about The Daily Signal podcast. Please give us a five-star review on iTunes and share this episode with your friends and family. This will help us make sure that we're continuing to grow and reach even more listeners. Stay tuned for today's show coming up next. We're joined at The Daily Signal by Mary Milden, an actress and singer. Mary, it's so good to be with you. It's great to be with you. Thanks for having me.

You've had the opportunity to perform before three presidents, most recently at President Trump's inauguration, but also Barack Obama and George W. Bush. What is that experience like to sing before the leader of the free world? Yeah, I tell you, and thanks for having me. It's been a joy to be here with Heritage and so grateful to Ms. Kay for the invitation. I tell you, it's pretty surreal, but I will say a true blessing. You know, I have loved my interfaces within the political arena. and I think every artist, when you have the opportunity to use their platform for good, and certainly in the context of, for the country, it's an honor.

And so to have worked for President Bush and then go into entertainment and sing for President Bush and Mrs. Bush and President Obama and the First Lady Obama, and now our president and First Lady Melania Trump, it's a true honor. And a stat, I would say, in my... my journey that I feel blessed to have. Tell us about your life story, how you ended up in government and then how you moved into the entertainment world. Yeah, in short, because it's a pretty lengthy one.

I'll say, you know, entertainment and politics are pretty much the same profession. You know, every four years, a new Broadway show comes into town, right? But I tell you, it's been great because I started in a pretty robust journey in politics. I was an intern at the White House for President Bush and then went to work the latter four years of the Bush administration. And during my time there, I was doing a lot of singing in Washington, D.C.

I was singing for Christmas tours at the White House and dinners in D.C., and that's what really introduced me to the entertainment business. And following my appointment with the Bush administration, I auditioned for a Broadway show that was opening in D.C. at the time. And right when President Obama came in, I left, and went into entertainment and kind of led me through the concert world

and moving to New York and all types of things. But it's been wonderful because now in my season of performing, I've been doing a lot of performing back in Washington, D.C. and in the political arena, and that has been a joy because I care about policy. I care about this country. I love America. I know where my freedom comes, as Gary Sanis says, our good friend.

And so it's been a joy to be able to contribute musically in an arena. an environment that I feel so strongly about. And I think artists have such a unique position because we are apolitical in that sense. We can advocate for the country. We can advocate for communities in need. We can advocate for the everyday American that sometimes it's hard for politicals per se to do.

And so I've been fortunate that I've been given a platform that works on both sides of the aisle to make a difference for the country. I want to talk about that in just a moment, but I want to share with our listeners a short clip of your performance at the Heritage Foundation meeting. Oh, that's a blessing.

Oh, say, can you sing under the Llasfi? Was that me saying? I don't know. It was in all those high notes. That was beautiful. Thank you so much for me. That's the good lore coming down. The good lore coming down.

So when you're doing the Trump inaugural or other events, I mean, you do, don't shy away from your pro-america feelings. What has it been like to be in entertainment, though, and have some views that might differ from maybe where the majority of people are? Sure. You know, it's certainly not a gatewalk.

You know, I am a proud conservative. I'm not afraid to say that. And certainly have my convictions and values that I hold true. But I am in a profession that has diverse views and diverse backgrounds. And so I respect. those views and backgrounds. And so I think, again, artists, entertainers have the great opportunity

to use their platforms for broad conversations. And so, you know, I heard a recent person say, you know, you can't change the world and resemble the world you want to change. And so I am not afraid to be in a profession that may not particularly agree with everything I say or care for everything I say, but I know that if this is what God has called me to do, and I try and everything that I am presented with to represent him first, and certainly represent the convictions and values that I believe in. And I feel that we are in a time where we are losing some of that civility in the context of being able to have conversation that may differ. I encourage it more. I sit down with someone that I don't agree with, perhaps, or may share a difference of opinion,

the better, because that's a way for us to all find common solutions and common grounds to better in the country. So I'm not afraid of a little opposition in the entertainment business, but certainly always find ways to work with differing opinions to better the country. Well, I'm so glad to hear you say that. That's really important. I know it's important to Heritage's President K. K. Coles James as well. That's a message that she certainly speaks about frequently. And you've had success in the entertainment.

So I'd like to hear about some of the things you have coming up. I mean, a new single coming out and debuting in a film. So share with our listeners what they can expect to hear from you in the future. Thank you. Well, very excited. I have been really blessed as a newbie still in the music business to have worked with some great songwriters and composers. And it's just been a blessing. A couple of years ago, I recorded a great song called Grace Will Lead Me Home with Stephen

Dorf, who is a very popular, a three-time Grammy nominee, a six-time Emmy nominee, and was inducted into the Song Writers Hall of Fame last year. And we recorded a song a couple years ago, landed into a film called The Meanest Man in Texas, which opened April 19th in Texas, and we'll be in theaters across the country here, May the 20th. And we're so excited about the film. We're so excited about the song because it really speaks to the element of grace. which is we are all blessed to have God's grace

and how that sustains all of our lives. And so the film did very well in the film festivals across the globe and certainly here in the States. And we're just very excited about the film and the music. And that has just led to a whole new energy of interfaces musically within film and within the recording music industry. And so lots of exciting things.

I'm really blessed. Who would you say are some of the biggest role models in your life? When it comes to the entertainment world, but I mean, can I guess be political as well? You know, I tell you, I've been blessed because I was, you know, my parents are retired ministers, so I come from a long journey within the faith community

and certainly in the ministry. And so a lot of great mentors come from there. But musically, you know, when I was a little girl, the faces on my wall were the Diana Rosses and the Barbara Streisans and the Aretha Franklin's and the Clark sisters coming from the gospel music world. And so that, musically were a lot of my inspirations going into music.

You got Whitney Houston right in there too. But I would also say, you know, politically, you know, Ronald Reagan is one of my, you know, was on my wall, you know, growing up and certainly such admiration for the Bush family because of working for them. But I tell you, I've been blessed. I've had a tremendous amount of mentors from an array of different professions. And one that we know well is Ms. K. Cole James, who is the president of Harage, who's been a tremendous support to me and to my career as a young professional and an artist and just

a blessing to be able to be connected to heritage in disregard musically but also in what I believe and my conviction so I thank Ms. Kay she's been a great mentor. Well thank you for that. Do you have a favorite song that you've performed? Oh goodness you know I love I love music you know I was trained classically so I grew up singing the great arias and the classics, but, you know, I love just about everything. Actually, my favorite music to sing, and I'm not just saying this because I'm here, I love singing America's patriotic music. I love those words of the Star-Spangled Banner and America the Beautiful and God Bless America.

And those songs are timeless, of course, but they speak to who we are as human beings, as citizens, as a community. And those type of songs, that inspiration are very meaningful to me. So, well, I love to sing, you know, I love gospel, I love country music. I love, you know, jazz, I love Broadway theater. I love just a little bit of everything. But I think it's the songs of our country that I love singing most. Well, I agree with you on that. They certainly do represent all those values that you talked about.

Absolutely, absolutely. You know, finally, I want to ask you, what advice do you have to young people who may want to make their mark in the entertainment world based on your own experience? What would you tell them? Be true to who you are. Be true to what God is calling you to sing

and you to say and you to contribute. You know, the entertainment business is a tough one. And many times you get into the business and you have a lot of voices and a lot of people telling you what they want you to sing, and what they want you to say, and how they want you to look, and can divert you from what you feel true to.

And so to any young person coming into the business, first do it. You know, there's nothing more rewarding than getting up every morning and saying, I'm doing what God is calling me to do. But more importantly, stay true to who you are. Your voice is unique, and there's only one of you. So when you get into the business,

seeing exactly what God is calling you to sing, do exactly what God is calling you to do, and be and become exactly what God is calling you to do. be and become in the business. You'll make an impact beyond what you could ever imagine if you stay true to that as an artist and as a voice in the business. Mary, great advice. Thanks so much for being with the Daily Signal. It's great to be here. Do you own an Amazon Echo? You can now get the Daily Signal podcast every day as part of your daily Alexa Flash briefing. It's easy to do. Just open your Amazon Alexa app, go to settings, and select Flash briefing. From there, you can

Search for the Daily Signal podcast and add it to your flash briefing so you can stay up to date with the top news of the day that the liberal media isn't covering. On May 26, 1986, President Ronald Reagan visited Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia to deliver remarks on Memorial Day. We thought you might enjoy hearing those remarks today. Today is the day we put aside to remember fallen heroes and to pray that no heroes will ever have to die for us again. It's a day of thanks for the valor of others, a day to remember the splendor of America and those of her children who rest in this cemetery and others. It's a day to be with the family and remember. I was thinking this morning that across the country, children and their parents will be going to the town parade,

and the young ones will sit on the sidewalks and wave their flags as the band goes by. Later, maybe they'll have a cookout or a day. day at the beach, and that's good, because today is a day to be with the family and to remember. Arlington, this place of so many memories, is a fitting place for some remembering. So many wonderful men and women rest here. Men and women who led colorful, vivid, and passionate lives. There are the grates of the military, Bull Halsey, and the Admiral's Leahy, father and son, blackjack Pershing, and the G.I.'s General Omar Bradley, great men all,

military men. But there are others here known for other things. Here in Arlington rests a sharecropper's son who became a hero to a lonely people. Joe Lewis came from nowhere, but he knew how to fight, and he galvanized a nation in the days after Pearl Harbor when he put on the uniform of his country and said, I know we'll win because we're on God's side. Audie Murphy is here. Audie Murphy of the wild, wild courage. For what else would you call it when a man bounds to the top of a disabled tank,

stops an enemy advance, saves lives and rallies his men, and all of it single-handedly? When he radioed for artillery support and was asked how close the enemy was to his position, he said, wait a minute, and I'll let you speak to them. Michael Smith is here and Dick Scobie, both of the Space Shuttle Challenger. Their courage wasn't wild, but thoughtful. The mature and measured courage of career professionals

who took prudent risks for great reward, in their case to advance the sum total of knowledge in the world. They are only the latest to rest here. They join other great explorers with names like Grissom and Chaffee. Oliver Wendell Holmes is here, the great jurist and fighter for the right. A poet searching for an image of true majesty could not rest until he seized on Holmes dissenting in a sordid age.

Young Holmes served in the Civil War. He might have been thinking of the crosses and stars of Arlington when he wrote, At the grave of a hero, we end, not with sorrow at the inevitable loss, but with the contagion of his courage and with a kind of desperate joy we go back to the fight. Well, all of these men were different, but they shared this in common. They loved America very much. There was nothing they wouldn't do for, and they loved with the sureness of the young.

It's hard not to think of the young in a place like this, for it's the young who do the fighting and dying when a peace fails and a war begins. Not far from here is the statue of the three servicemen, the three fighting boys of Vietnam. It too has majesty and more. Perhaps you've seen it. Three rough boys walking together looking ahead with a steady gaze. There's something wounded about them, a kind of resigned toughness, but there's an unexpected tenderness too. At first you don't really notice, but then you see it. The three are touching each other, as if they're supporting each other, helping each other on. I know that many veterans of Vietnam will gather today, some of them perhaps by the wall, and they're still helping each other on. They were quite a

group, the boys of Vietnam, boys who fought a terrible and vicious war without enough support from home. Boys who were dodging bullets while we debated the efficacy of the battle. It was often our poor who fought in that war. It was the unpampered boys of the working class who picked up the rifles and went on the march. They learned not to rely on us. They learned to rely on each other. And they were special in another way. They chose to be faithful. They chose to reject the fashionable skepticism of their time. They chose to be. They chose to be believe and answer the call of duty. They had the wild, wild courage of youth.

They seized certainty from the heart of an ambivalent age. They stood for something, and we owe them something. Those boys, we owe them first a promise that just as they did not forget their missing comrades, neither ever will we. And there are other promises. We must always remember that peace is a fragile, thing that needs constant vigilance. We owe them a promise to look at the world with a steady

gaze and perhaps a resigned toughness, knowing that we have adversaries in the world and challenges, and the only way to meet them and maintain the peace is by staying strong. That, of course, is the lesson of this century, a lesson learned in the Sudetenland, in Poland, in Hungary, in Czechoslovakia, in Cambodia. If we really care about peace, we must stay strong. If we really care about peace, we must, through our strength, demonstrate our unwillingness to accept an ending of the peace. We must be strong enough to create peace where it does not exist

and strong enough to protect it where it does. That's the lesson of this century, and I think of this day. That's all I wanted to say. The rest of my contribution is, to leave this great place to its peace, a peace it has earned. Thank all of you, and God bless you, and have a day full of memories. Up next, we will have this week's good news story from Virginia. Do conversations about the Supreme Court leave you scratching your head?

If you want to understand what's happening at the court, subscribe to Scotus 101, a Heritage Foundation podcast, breaking down the cases, personalities, and gossip at the Supreme Court. Virginia, as we do every Monday, you have a good news story to share with us, this one about Memorial Day. Yeah, thank you, Rob. In honor of Memorial Day, I want to take a moment to celebrate our veterans who sacrifice so much for our freedom and to say thank you to those who are helping our veterans after their time of service. For many service members, acclimating back into civilian life can be a great challenge. But some nonprofits and businesses offer programs or assistance to military personnel as they make this transition. Dog Tag Bakery in Washington, D.C., is one such small business.

Megan Ogilvie, CEO of Dog Tag Incorporated, is passionate about seeing American service members succeed after their military service. And our goal is really to ignite the human spirit for those that have served our country, both on the battlefield at home, and to allow them to know that there is a mission and a purpose outside the uniform. This little bakery partners with Georgetown University to offer a fellowship program that provides post-9-11 military veterans with service-connected disabilities or military spouses or caregivers with the opportunity to learn business skills and professional development. John Lira, a Marine veteran and graduate of the fellowship program, says that he felt so empowered because

of the program's holistic approach. You get education experiences with the professional. professors from Georgetown. You get employment development through some of the best organizations like Deloitte. And you also get the entrepreneurial piece with the entrepreneurial-based curriculum and working in a small business. So Dog Tag gives you five months to explore all of those routes. The Dog Tag program not only provides professional experience and opportunity, but also community. Returning home from deployment can be a lonely experience. Friends and family might not understand what their loved ones have gone through. And the fellowship offers that community with other men and women who are adjusting back to life outside of the military uniform.

You bring this collection of military spouses and veterans from all service branches. And not only do they grow individually, but they grow as a cohort. And at the very end, they are much more prepared to take that next step in our lives. For all the men and women who have and do serve in our armed forces, thank you. And to organizations and businesses like Dog Tag Bakery, thank you for intentionally caring for our military veterans. Wow, Virginia, thanks for sharing that story with us today. Yeah, my pleasure, Rob.

Well, we're going to leave it there. The Daily Signal podcast comes to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation. You can find it on the Rurkishay Audio Network, along with all of our podcasts. All our shows can be found on daily signal.com slash podcast. You can also subscribe. on iTunes, Google Play, or your favorite podcast app.

And be sure to listen every weekday by adding the Daily Signal podcast as part of your Alexa Flash briefing. If you like what you hear, please leave us a review or give us feedback. It really means a lot for helping us spread the word to others. Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Daily Signal and Facebook.com slash the Daily Signal News. Have a great week. You've been listening to the Daily Signal podcast, executive produced by Kate Trinko and Daniel Davis. designed by Michael Gooden, Lauren Evans, and Thalia Rampersad. For more information, visitdailysignal.com.