Songs of America : patriotism, protest, and the music that made a nation / Jon Meacham and Tim McGraw.
Material type: TextPublisher: New York : Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC, [2019]Copyright date: ©2019Edition: First editionDescription: 302 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 24 cmContent type:- text
- still image
- unmediated
- volume
- 9780593132951
- 0593132955
- 782.420973 23
- ML3917.U6 M43 2019
Item type | Current library | Collection | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Book | Bedford Public Library Non-Fiction | Non-Fiction | 782.42097 MEA | Available | 32500001778548 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A celebration of American history through the music that helped to shape a nation, by Pulitzer Prize winner Jon Meacham and music superstar Tim McGraw
"Jon Meacham and Tim McGraw form an irresistible duo--connecting us to music as an unsung force in our nation's history."--Doris Kearns Goodwin
Through all the years of strife and triumph, America has been shaped not just by our elected leaders and our formal politics but also by our music--by the lyrics, performers, and instrumentals that have helped to carry us through the dark days and to celebrate the bright ones.
From "The Star-Spangled Banner" to "Born in the U.S.A.," Jon Meacham and Tim McGraw take readers on a moving and insightful journey through eras in American history and the songs and performers that inspired us. Meacham chronicles our history, exploring the stories behind the songs, and Tim McGraw reflects on them as an artist and performer. Their perspectives combine to create a unique view of the role music has played in uniting and shaping a nation.
Beginning with the battle hymns of the revolution, and taking us through songs from the defining events of the Civil War, the fight for women's suffrage, the two world wars, the Great Depression, the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, and into the twenty-first century, Meacham and McGraw explore the songs that defined generations, and the cultural and political climates that produced them. Readers will discover the power of music in the lives of figures such as Harriet Tubman, Franklin Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King, Jr., and will learn more about some of our most beloved musicians and performers, including Marian Anderson, Elvis Presley, Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Duke Ellington, Carole King, Bruce Springsteen, and more.
Songs of America explores both famous songs and lesser-known ones, expanding our understanding of the scope of American music and lending deeper meaning to the historical context of such songs as "My Country, 'Tis of Thee," "God Bless America," "Over There," "We Shall Overcome," and "Blowin' in the Wind." As Quincy Jones says, Meacham and McGraw have "convened a concert in Songs of America ," one that reminds us of who we are, where we've been, and what we, at our best, can be.
Includes bibliographical references (pages [235]-280) and index.
From "The Star-Spangled Banner" to "Born in the U.S.A.," Jon Meacham and Tim McGraw take readers on a moving and insightful journey through eras in American history and the songs and performers that inspired us. Meacham chronicles our history, exploring the stories behind the songs, and Tim McGraw reflects on them as an artist and performer. Their perspectives combine to create a unique view of the role music has played in uniting and shaping a nation. Beginning with the battle hymns of the revolution, and taking us through songs from the defining events of the Civil War, the fight for women's suffrage, the two world wars, the Great Depression, the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, and into the twenty-first century, Meacham and McGraw explore the songs that defined generations, and the cultural and political climates that produced them. Readers will discover the power of music in the lives of figures such as Harriet Tubman, Franklin Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King, Jr., and will learn more about some of our most beloved musicians and performers, including Marian Anderson, Elvis Presley, Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Duke Ellington, Carole King, Bruce Springsteen, and more.
Excerpt provided by Syndetics
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Kirkus Book Review
Historian Meacham (The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels, 2018, etc.) teams up with country star McGraw to chart the course of American patriotic music from the Revolution to the present.Significant events in American life have always had a soundtrack. Bruce Springsteen was ready with "My City of Ruins" when 9/11 occurred, having already recorded it, but it would be a while before Neil Young would release "Let's Roll" and Alan Jackson would craft "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning?)" As McGraw writes of the songs on Springsteen's album The Rising in one of the scattered sidebars in which he offers commentary on Meacham's text, "it's understandable how these songs have come to be anthems for the brave men and women of the New York fire and police departments." Neither the main text nor McGraw's commentary goes particularly deep, and if there's a thesis, it might be in Meacham's closing: "The whole panoply of America can be tracedand, more important, heard and feltin the songs that echo through our public squares." The authors are agreeably inclusive in their repertoire, from "This Land Is Your Land" and "We Shall Overcome" to "Over There" and "The Ballad of the Green Berets," the last of which, McGraw holds, invokes pride, adding, "maybe it's not cool to say that." Some songs are well known, such as "Yankee Doodle," while readers will be glad to know some of the less-remembered tunes of the Revolution, such as "The Liberty Song." A nice touch comes when Meacham puts the Cuban missile crisis in the context of Bob Dylan's discography: If the missiles had flown, he notes, it's possible that "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" "would be the last song Dylan would ever write."Not in the musicological class of Alan Lomax or at the historical heights of David Hackett Fischer's Liberty and Freedom, but worthy reading for the anthemically minded. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.Author notes provided by Syndetics
Jon Meacham was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee on May 20, 1969. He received a degree in English literature at the University of the South. He joined Newsweek as a writer in 1995. Three years later, at the age of 29, he was promoted to managing editor, supervising coverage of politics, international affairs, and breaking news. In 2006, he was promoted to editor at Newsweek. He is currently an executive editor at Random House.He won the Pulitzer Prize for American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House in 2009. His other works include Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship, American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation. In 2001, he edited Voices in Our Blood: America's Best on the Civil Rights Movement. In 2013 his title Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power made The New York Times Best Seller List. In 2015 Meacham's title Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush made The New York Times Best Seller List. His most recent book is entitled The Soul of America: The Battle for our Better Angels (2018).