Provides words and music for traditional western ballads and explains the history of each song.

"Songs of America explores the music of important times in our history--the stirring pro- and anti-war music of the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, World Wars I and II, and the Vietnam War; the folk songs and popular music of the Great Depression, the fight for women's rights, and the Civil Rights movement; and the music of both beloved and lesser-known poets, musicians, and songwriters from Colonial times to the twenty-first century. Pulitzer Prize-winning...

""Not since the late Leonard Bernstein has classical music had a combination salesman-teacher as irresistible as Kapilow."--Kansas City Star. Few people in recent memory have dedicated themselves as devotedly to the story of twentieth-century American music as Rob Kapilow, the composer, conductor, and host of the hit NPR music radio program, What makes it great? Now, in Listening for America, he turns his keen ear to the great American songbook, bringing...

Words and music describe different emotions in terms of color, as when everything is rosy when one feels joyful, then remind the reader that everyone experiences this same rainbow of emotions.

A cinematic synthesis of four Newport folk Festivals that depicts the crucial years of transition for the art of folk music 1963-1966.

The big bang: At the height of the Roaring Twenties, music scouts armed with cutting-edge recording technology set out across America to capture the unsung voices of everyday folk. Blood and soil: America's poor--cotton field slaves, mine workers, sharecroppers--find freedom through music, creating gospel, protest songs, and Delta blues. Out of the many, the one: Exotic cultures spanning America are captured on record for the first time, inventing...