American Song
American Song is a podcast that explores the history of American music and its profound impact on the world. It tells the stories of artists and the people who were moved by their songs, from colonial taverns to protest marches abroad. The show examines how rhythms born in churches, fields, and juke joints spread globally, becoming anthems of hope and resistance. Each episode focuses on a specific era, genre, band, or song, revealing how American music became a shared cultural force.
Episodes
Independent Artists: A.J. Deiboldt - Nashville, TN
Get in touch!Today on American Song, I’ll introduce you to my friend, A.J. Deiboldt. A.J. is a singer-songwriter originally from upstate New York, now making his music in a small town in the woods of Tennessee just outside Nashville. American Song is a show that celebrates the history, breadth and richness of our country’s music in all its flavors. Writing memorable and sensitive songs in the styl
Dancing Under Fire: Blood in the Groove — Los Prisioneros, Soda Stereo, D.A.F., and Brenda Fassie
Get in touch!New Wave was born in a New York dive bar, then it got on a plane. In England it picked up eyeliner and a synthesizer where its guitar used to be. But somewhere over the Atlantic, in a few very specific places, it also picked up something heavier: a government watching.This is the final episode in our New Wave series, and it's the one where the genre stops being an aesthetic and s
New Wave: The Conquerors - The Second British Invasion, and How Michael Jackson and Prince Broke Down the Walls at MTV
Get in touch!Britain just turned the lights fluorescent. The future arrives every Wednesday now, whether you're ready or not.Picture 1979 England: factories closing, Thatcher cutting glass with every syllable, and a music press so brutal it could make or break a band before the tea went cold. Punk already burned down the house. Now a blond former schoolteacher from Newcastle who sounds like a
The New Wave Fun House: Blondie, Talking Heads, DEVO, The Cars, Oingo Boingo
Get in touch!It was the late 1970s and early '80s. New York was bankrupt. Akron's tire factories were closing. Regular families were struggling with double-digit inflation. The AIDS epidemic was raging. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan and the US boycotted the Olympics in protest. John Lennon was assassinated. And somewhere in the background, always, that low hum — nuclear warheads, pati
New Wave — Up From the Ooze (How Kraftwerk, The Ramones, Television, Patti Smith and CBGB - a Twelve-Foot Room on the Bowery - Accidentally Invented the Future)
Get in touch!Five hundred million years ago, ( approximately 1977), something extraordinary happened on the floor of an ancient sea. Life — which had spent billions of years as little more than a few unremarkable blobs drifting in the dark — suddenly exploded into every possible form simultaneously. Claws. Fins. Shells. Eyes. Creatures of impossible elegance and alien strangeness, emerging from th
The Greatest Music You've Never Heard: The Songs of Mark Davis (2)
Get in touch!Part 2Happy New Year, Everybody! (Even if you're reading this in July....)Across the last five seasons of American Song, we've traveled the arc of American music and listened to some of the greatest songs ever recorded, by some of the best loved artists over a century of thrilling music that changed the world. But what about all those artists whose music is as good, if not b
The Greatest Music You've Never Heard: The Songs of Mark Davis (1)
Get in touch!Part 1Happy New Year, Everybody! (Even if you're reading this in July....)Across the last five seasons of American Song, we've traveled the arc of American music and listened to some of the greatest songs ever recorded, by some of the best loved artists over a century of thrilling music that changed the world. But what about all those artists whose music is as good, if not b
Bruce Springsteen and the American Reckoning: Last Man Standing
Get in touch!Part Five starts with a funeral and a realization: when Bruce's friend and former Castile's band mate, George Theiss, dies, Bruce becomes the last man left from his teenage band. That shock pushes him into Springsteen on Broadway, Western Stars, and Letter to You—projects that ask what kind of ancestor, and what kind of citizen, you want to be when you’re running out of time
Bruce Springsteen and the American Reckoning: Breakups, Ghosts, and Trump’s America
Get in touch!Part Four is where the story cuts close to the bone. Bruce lets the E Street Band go, stares down his own failures on Tunnel of Love, and writes The Ghost of Tom Joad for the people that some Americans prefer not to see: migrants, the unemployed, the left-behind. The band reunites, “American Skin (41 Shots)” forces a conversation about race and fear, and The Rising and Wrecking Ball t
Bruce Springsteen and the American Reckoning: Darkness, The River, Nebraska, and Berlin ’88
Get in touch!Factories closing, marriages cracking, the glitter of the ’80s hiding a lot of hurt—Part 3 lives right in that gap between the American dream and the American day-to-day. Bruce digs into Darkness, The River, and Nebraska, writing about people who rarely get a mic: laid-off workers, young couples in over their heads, neighbors hanging on by their fingernails. Then Born in the U.S.A. tu
Bruce Springsteen and the American Reckoning: Born to Run, Bomb Scares, and the Edge of Fame
Get in touch!Part two picks up in the clubs and dives where Bruce and the band are trying to outrun obscurity. We walk with them through the struggle to get the first records heard, the critics who saw the spark, and the brutal work of making Born to Run: months of second-guessing, endless mixes, and the very real possibility that it might all collapse under its own ambition. We hear about Jon Lan
Bruce Springsteen and the American Reckoning: Freehold to Cherry Hill
Get in touch!We start the series in 2025, at Springsteen's show in Manchester, UK where he makes a landmark statement about America's "leadership" before we flash back to his formative years.A cramped house in Freehold. A father smoking in the dark kitchen. A kid staring at the radio like it’s a way out and a way in. In Part one, we meet Bruce not as a legend, but as a working-
Lives in the Balance: Jackson Browne and the Fight for America’s Soul
Get in touch!For over five decades, Jackson Browne has stood at the intersection of melody and message—crafting songs that speak not only to the heart, but also to the conscience. In an age of division and disinformation, his music feels like a lifeline to an older, more grounded sense of American democratic values—truth, empathy, accountability, and moral courage. This episode dives into Browne’s
Warren Zevon's Beautiful Wreckage
Get in touch!In this episode of American Song, we explore the life and legacy of Warren Zevon, one of America’s most fearless and darkly funny songwriters. Known for his biting wit and uncompromising honesty, Zevon built a career chronicling the messier sides of the human experience—addiction, regret, heartbreak, and mortality.From his early days as a struggling songwriter in Los Angeles to the un
God’s Song and Other American Prayers: The Story of Randy Newman
Get in touch!You could think of Randy Newman as a musical Mark Twain. His songs draw up from a range of curiously disconnected observations about life in this era’s America in some of the same ways that Twain’s pen spoke of the America he lived in. Twain’s Mississippi paddlewheels churned the dark waters of that rolling river mixing old and new, sacred and profane and In his songs, Newman is doing
If a Tree Falls: Bruce Cockburn and the Angry, Necessary Songs Nobody Else Would Write
Get in touch!In this haunting and deeply reflective episode, we explore the music of Bruce Cockburn—an artist who persistently challenges our indifference and urges us to reckon with the moral weight of being human. His songs are not just art; they are calls to awareness, rooted in compassion and fierce clarity.We delve into the global injustices that course through his music: the devastation of c
Save Something for Yourself: Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell, and the Art of Radical Honesty
Get in touch!In these days, when people play fast and loose with truth for the purpose of personal gain at the expense of important things like rights, and even survival, I hope this episode, and the next one help us all regain a little sanity and peace. Personal Truth takes you on a powerful journey through the birth of the singer-songwriter era, spotlighting artists who didn't just sing abo
Bob Dylan - America’s Nobel Poet Laureate
Get in touch!By the late 1960’s, folk was beginning to feel “scarred and battered”, so what came next in this tradition was less political, and much more personal. The world was changing politically, socially, and culturally. Some of the new generation of singers and songwriters felt that staying relevant meant they had to move away from folk, towards more personal themes. The ‘70s was the “Me” de
The Minstrel and the Symphony: Jethro Tull, ELP, and Progressive Rock's Wilder Shores
Get in touch!It seems like every ten years or so, society experiences a great reset. The end of the ‘60s was like that. The idealism and teen-culture of the ‘60’s was ten years older and moving into adult life. Just like everything else in life that was questioned and re-invented, some musicians began pushing the boundaries of what rock music could become. Across the Atlantic, and as Ian Ander
Close to the Edge: How Yes and Genesis Took Progressive Rock to Its Furthest Reaches
Get in touch!It seems like every ten years or so, society experiences a great reset. The end of the ‘60s was like that. The idealism and teen-culture of the ‘60’s was ten years older and moving into adult life. Just like everything else in life that was questioned and re-invented. Some musicians began pushing the boundaries of what rock music could become. Across the Atlantic, and as Ian And
From Kent State to King Crimson: How the Counterculture Invented Progressive Rock
Get in touch! It seems like every ten years or so, society experiences a great reset. The end of the ‘60s was like that. The idealism and teen-culture of the ‘60’s was ten years older and moving into adult life. Just like everything else in life that was questioned and re-invented, some musicians began pushing the boundaries of what rock music could become. Across the Atlantic, and as Ian And
Punk - The Shot Heard Round the World
Get in touch!Punk may have been born in America, but it had many homes around the world. In every place it went, punk became part of the struggle for social change.Punk's roots are in the blues, music made for expressing struggles and refusing to accept things the way they are. With heritage like this, it should be no surprise that it moved people and shook things up in the powerful ways it
From CBGB to Dublin to Odessa: The Ramones, Blondie, The Pogues, and Punk's Unstoppable Global Spread
Get in touch!America's Punk movement was started on both coasts. Early proto-punks like the MC5 and the New York Dolls were followed by a number of other early iconic acts who played at several New York clubs, including CBGB's (Country Blue Grass and Blues), such as the The Ramones, the Talking Heads, Blondie, and Patti Smith. Meanwhile, LA and San Francisco had a decidedly more politi
Coast to Coast Chaos: New York and LA Spark the American Punk Revolution!
Get in touch!When the dreams and promises you’ve placed your hopes in end up being a mirage, its only human to feel angry. In the mid 1970’s, a lot of teens and young adults found themselves in this camp. The nation’s shift toward a decidedly more cynical era could be heard in anti-war statements such as "War is not healthy for children and other living things" On the equal rights age
Sweet Home Alabama: Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Band, Charlie Daniels, and the Music of a South at War With Itself
Get in touch!This is the second half of a two-part episodeIn the late 1960's and early 1970's, Southern rock, a rebellious fusion of blues, rock and roll, and country music, emerged as the defiant cry from the heart of the South. Lynyrd Skynyrd's guitars wailed like banshees, their lyrics echoing the region's resistance to outside finger-pointing and strengthened a determinatio
Southern Rock: Coming to Terms with a Complicated Past
Get in touch!In the late 1960's and early 1970's, Southern rock, a rebellious fusion of blues, rock and roll, and country music, emerged as the defiant cry from the heart of the South. Lynyrd Skynyrd's guitars wailed like banshees, their lyrics echoing the region's resistance to outside fingerpointing and strengthened a determination to preserve their own cultural identity. Ne
Redemption Song: The Life, Music, and Unstoppable Legacy of Bob Marley
Get in touch!This is part two of a two-part focus on Reggae music.The heart of Reggae music has always been politics and spirituality. In this two part episode, you'll learn about some of the musical and political forces in Jamaica's colorful past that all contributed to the music that we celebrate as reggae today. From Marcus Garvey, the modern-day prophet who had a vision for the bl
From Slavery to Ska: The Jamaican History That Made Reggae Inevitable
Get in touch!This is part one of a two-part focus on Reggae music.The heart of Reggae music has always been politics and spirituality. In this two part episode, you'll learn about some of the musical and political forces in Jamaica's colorful past that all contributed to the music that we celebrate as reggae today. From Marcus Garvey, the modern-day prophet who had a vision for the b
The Masters of Funk: James Brown, the Meters, Sly Stone, Stevie Wonder, George Clinton
Get in touch!In today's episode, we’re going further up the musical family tree – into the funk. Funk grew in the shade of jazz, soul, R&B, gospel and rock. In time it’s going to give rise to other branches – for instance, disco, and hip-hop. It will influence branches that have been growing for a while already, like rock, jazz, even classical music believe it or not. Funk is growing
Reelin' in the Years: Steely Dan, Traffic, and Supertramp's Blueprint for the Perfect Record
Get in touch!In this second episode of our third season, we pick up the trail and continue our exploration of jazz rock - a journey we started in episode one. In this episode, we'll take a close look at the amazing work done by three great bands in that genre; Steely Dan, Traffic, and Supertramp. Great songs, and interesting artist interviews abound! Here's what you can look forward t
The Other Side of Fusion: Jazz Rock
Get in touch!The first generation of jazz rock musicians had been heavily influenced by some of the pioneering jazz musicians who forged jazz fusion, beginning with Miles Davis. Miles was the first of the great jazz artists to venture into the new, amplified and electronic sounds of 1960’s rock music, and in doing it he recruited a number of very young, incredibly talented, and mostly unknown mus
After Miles: Herbie Hancock, Weather Report, and Jazz Fusion's Golden Generation
Get in touch!In today's podcast episode, we pick up our exploration of jazz fusion by looking at the amazing careers and music produced by a number of genius musicians who came out of Miles Davis' bands. We'll visit with Herbie Hancock, John McLaughlin and his band, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Joe Zawinul, Jaco Pastorious and the band Weather Report, Chick Corea and his bands Return
Bitches Brew: How Miles Davis Blew Up Jazz and Invented the Future
Get in touch!As jazz musicians started realizing that rock and electric bands were stealing their audiences, Miles Davis, who’s alternately been called most important musician in the history of jazz, the man who transformed jazz, and even the man who changed music itself, took the music in a new direction when he invented jazz fusion. In fact, during his lifetime, Miles didn’t change music just o
Action: Reaction - American Bands and American Society Respond to the English Invasion
Get in touch!First of all, Happy Independence Day everybody! I'm so pleased to publish another episode of American Song on America's birthday!Back in America, ever since the plane crash in the winter of 1959 that ended the lives of Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, the Big Bopper, American rock and roll had been sort of losing steam. By 1964, it very easily could have just petered out. Cer
America's Music Comes Home: The Beatles, the Stones, the Yardbirds, and How England Gave Us Back Our Rock and Roll
Get in touch!With the big English interest in blues music, suddenly, America’s original bluesmen started hearing about the chance to reignite their careers with English, French and German audiences. Unbelievably, they found themselves welcomed, even celebrated. American Bluesmen like Big Bill Broonzy, after living years in poverty, discovered they could actually have careers in Europe. The Cuna
Before the Beatles: How American Blues Conquered England First
Get in touch!England was caught between two cultures: the old order and whatever came after it. The rigid class distinctions between upper and middle classes were disappearing, and government reforms had a lot to do with it. The Conservative Party with their slogan, “Set the People Free,” won the 1951 election, and popular culture began to replace stuffy, upper crust stuff like classical music,
Puerto Ricans Sing Out for Justice.
Get in touch!Before the arrival of Colombus and the Spanish, Puerto Rico was peopled by the Taino tribe. They’d called it home – and paradise – for over 1,000 years, having come either from the Amazon river basin, or maybe from the Colombian Andes before they arrived on the island. In our March episode, we talked about the Jones Act – a law made during the Wilson presidency. The chief goal of t
American Song and the Fight for Hispanic Equality.
Get in touch!In a country based on freedom, equal opportunity, and democracy, you’d think that lessons related to social justice would not need to be re-hashed so often. But that does seem to be our fate. And so, in every generation, we’ve witnessed one group after another struggle to claim their own share of the American dream.Music has had a huge role in raising awareness, unifying people, ins
Land of A Thousand Dances - Latin American Music
Get in touch!Latin music and 'American' music were once considered to be separate and unique. They had distinctly different properties and music labels managed them differently. But not anymore.Danny Ocean is a singer-songwriter and native of Caracas, Venezuela, and has said “Music is something that transcends beyond any language or nationality…it’s all about being a global artist.” La
The Roots of Latin Music in the New World
Get in touch!In this episode, we shift focus to consider another important cultural vein, brought here by the Spanish, and rising out of the American west and Southwest as well as New York City – and obviously all of Central and South America, Cuba and Puerto Rico. A few things have struck me as I’ve been putting my thoughts together for these next few episodes. Of course, the first thing is th
Folk Music Played the Changes in American Society.
Get in touch!In our July, 2021 episode on the first generation of folk music, “Folk Music Stood for America”, we talked about how the music was swept up in the major social movements of the day, especially the socialist/ American Communist party movements which gathered speed because of events like the Great Depression and the Dustbowl. The second revival of the 1960’s also had its own causes; th
1960’s Folk Music: How the Fire Spread
Get in touch!The 1960’s were a period of massive social change and tension all over the country – all over North America in fact - because we have to include Canada, too. The conditions were just right for a whole group of passionate, inspired, and gifted young singers and songwriters to lift their voices. They came from many different American communities; Jewish immigrants, First Nations pe
The Second Folk Revival – A Passing of the Torch.
Get in touch!Happy New Year and welcome to season two in the American Song podcast series! It's been a bit since we last got together. I hope you all are doing well. In both the first and second folks waves, many of the musicians were heavily influenced by the times and events that lived in. During the first folk revival, the most important social issues included the Great Depression, and
Musique Concrete: A Radical Re-Thinking of Sound and Performance
Get in touch!If there’s an over-riding theme across the last several episodes, it is that music can be whatever we say it is. In this third and last episode on this theme, we’re talking about Musique Concrete. It’s the name applied to a one of the most radical descriptions of music ever imagined. Think of this music like you do when you think of abstract, visual art. For instance, Picasso’s Gue
The Celestial Pulse of Minimalism.
Get in touch!In the world of American art music, Minimalism is another push away from traditional music. It’s earliest beginnings are found in the 1950’s again, with two American composers; Steve Reich (b.1936) and Philip Glass (b.1937). Reich, Glass, and another minimalist, John Adams, were all heavily influenced by mid-century popular music. Together, they’re known as the ‘big three’ in mini
When the World Was In Chaos, Music Became Atonal
Get in touch!The 20th century scientific explosion had been in the works since the Enlightenment, but the rate of change, which had been slow, and adaptable, now came in flashes – like a supernova - and repeatedly, one major wave after another and in ways that dramatically changed our society; instead of having time to gradually adapt and fold these changes into our ordered lives, our lives were
Special Feature: 1950's American Culture; the Seedbed of Rock and Roll
Get in touch!Newton’s Third Law of Motion; For every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. I mentioned that rock and music was equal parts music and social movement. This was a totally new event for music. In earlier episodes, we’ve seen how jazz was borrowed by the US Government for global PR purposes, and of course, music has always given a voice to the hopes, dreams, hurts, and f
Hail Hail Rock and Roll
Get in touch!By the 1950’s, American Music had been on a fascinating journey. Rolling out of the Appalachian Mountains and into southern cities; drifting out of the cotton plantations of the south, winding its way up from New Orleans, along the Mississippi Delta, carried along many musical creeks, tributaries, and rivers, rolling its way along mysterious trails past the crossroads, and chugging i
R&B Was Born on the American Song River
Get in touch!This episode is dedicated to the memory of Rolling Stones drummer, Charlie Watts,. Charlie passed away while I was preparing this episode. In a career that spanned more than sixty years, he left us all a massive library of songs and memories that we all will treasure forever. Thanks for everything, Charlie. It was only Rock and Roll, but I liked it!Episode DescriptionIt was a ne
Folk Music Stood For America
Get in touch!Today’s episode is all about the first of the two 20th century waves in the folk music movement and how that movement rallied people behind some big themes to help them fight for social justice. As a people, Americans are inclined towards optimism and a belief that if things aren’t working, they can be fixed. How improvement is defined, which issues get the focus, and how those impro
Jazz in Defense of Equality and Justice For All
Get in touch!America’s music, at least through 1955, was jazz. In this episode, we’ll take a deep dive into the predominant forms jazz took on from 1930 through the 1950’s and into the 1960’s, including swing, bebop, hard bop and cool jazz. In many ways during these years, Jazz gave voice to the difficult tensions and struggles confronting Americans in those years, and which tested our belief in
The Rising of Gospel Music and How It Inspired the World.
Get in touch!Imagine a people, passing through the crucible of slavery, for hundreds of years, until the first people in your new lineage are often lost in time – because slaves have no more families or histories any more than cattle or sheep do – and coming out the other side, proud, shining, and triumphant. Imagine using that experience to lay the foundations of music that became the soundtrack
Country Music Blazes a Trail.
Get in touch!During the first half of the 1900’s, Country music grew from a small group of naïve country musicians who shared their love of the old songs and the old ways with a country that was coming of age. As even now, the players that created the music Americans loved came from colorful backgrounds, and gave all they had to the music. Along the way, some of them gave too much – guys like Ha
The Duality of the Blues; Episode 7 of American Song
Get in touch!The Blues deals with very personal types of pain. But it doesn’t wallow in self-pity. The blues is about overcoming – like Martin Luther King Jr. used in his marches – “We Shall Overcome”. Great blues is all about a catharsis – a purging – of the things that hurt us so that we can go on living better lives! Nothing captures the Christian sense of death and redemption like the bl
The Classical-Jazz Affair
Get in touch!By the 1920's, jazz had grown too large for its humble origins in New Orleans and was impacting the musical world, including the greatest classical European musicians and composers, as well as American listeners and fellow jazz musicians.What came next was an explosion of creativity among the musical who's who of the day.The world's stage was filled to capacity with Eur
The Early Days of Jazz
Get in touch!Welcome to episode five in the American Song podcast.The early days of jazz were full of exploration, invention, and creativity. It was a time of fluid exchanges in the music world between blacks and whites, even if it was only seldom happening anywhere else.Jazz rose up from Congo Square in New Orleans, which was a culturally rich gumbo of sounds, rhythms and movement produced by pe
The Early Days of Country Music
Get in touch!A fusion of blues and mountain music, a reminder of better times for many people, and a host of memorable and gifted musicians. In this episode, we'll discover the following musicians and their music:Jimmie Rogers & Louis Armstrong - Blue Yodel Number NineDeFord Bailey - Pan American BluesCotton Eyed Joe - Fiddlin' John CarsonShow Intro for the Grand Ol' Opry - No
The Roots of Jazz - Ragtime, Stride, Boogie Woogie and the Blues
Get in touch!America's original art contribution to the world - jazz.So deep. So rich. But where did it come from?There were at least four different sources; and yet one of these - the blues - is also much more than a contributing art form. The blues is almost mythology itself. Sprung from the earth, like the plantation soil where so many slaves lived and died, the blues at once describes
The Many Musical Threads in Our National Fabric; Early American Music by Region
Get in touch!Hi All,Episode two of “American Song” is an exploration of some of the early regional music from before the 20th century. Like some of the things we listened to in episode one, many of these forms survive and continue to be popular today!In this half-hour episode, we’ll listen to Appalachian and Mountain music, then travel down to Louisiana for a sampling of Cajun music! No trip to
(If World Cultures Were Musical Notes), Early America Was a Ready-Made Symphony.
Get in touch!Welcome to American Song.There are few things I love more than music, and America.Both of these worlds have been my home since my earliest days.I've been thinking about producing this podcast for many years now. And now, this is episode one; With this podcast, I want to tell a story about how many cultures have contributed to the music we listen to today, and how the people o
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