American Song
American Song is a podcast that traces the origins and development of American - and ultimately world-wide - forms of modern musical entertainment. Over time, we will trace every major genre from its origins through the current day.American Song looks at the development of our music through the lens of social, political, and economic changes that were occurring in each case, and we'll feature the most important musicians in each genre.Every episode is chock-full of the music we love and where possible, we include archival interviews so you can hear about, in the actual words and voices of these great musicians and singers, the motives and passions that drove their creativity.
Episodes
53 episodes
Bruce Springsteen and the American Reckoning: Part Five - Last Man Standing
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, ...
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45:52
Bruce Springsteen and the American Reckoning: Part Four - Breakups, Ghosts, and Trump’s America
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: migra...
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51:21
Bruce Springsteen and the American Reckoning: Part Three: Darkness, The River, Nebraska, and Berlin ’88
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
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52:00
Bruce Springsteen and the American Reckoning: Part Two - Born to Run, Bomb Scares, and the Edge of Fame
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 Ru...
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Season 5
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Episode 8
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41:23
Bruce Springsteen and the American Reckoning: Part One - Freehold to Cherry Hill
We start the episode 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 ...
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Season 5
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Episode 7
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49:19
Lives in the Balance: Jackson Browne and the Fight for America’s Soul
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 ...
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Season 5
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Episode 6
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1:47:39
Warren Zevon's Beautiful Wreckage
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 me...
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Season 5
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Episode 5
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1:30:42
God’s Song and Other American Prayers: The Story of Randy Newman
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 ...
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Season 5
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Episode 4
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1:21:29
Bruce Cockburn/ The Singer-Songwriters Part Two: Truth to Power
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 call...
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1:30:11
Judi Collins & Joni Mitchell/ The Singer-Songwriters Part Two: Personal Truth
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.&nb...
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Season 5
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Episode 2
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56:17
Bob Dylan/ The Singer-Songwriters: Part One
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 s...
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Season 5
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Episode 1
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1:50:17
Flower Power in Full Bloom - Progressive Rock - Part 3
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 els...
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Season 4
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Episode 6
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1:09:39
Flower Power in Full Bloom - Progressive Rock - Part 2
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 els...
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Season 4
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Episode 5
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1:08:17
Flower Power in Full Bloom: Progressive Rock - Part 1
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.&n...
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Season 4
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Episode 4
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1:10:23
Punk - The Shot Heard Round the World
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...
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Season 4
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Episode 3
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1:36:18
Coast to Coast Chaos: New York and LA Spark the American Punk Revolution (Part Two)
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 ...
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Season 4
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Episode 2
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56:07
Coast to Coast Chaos: New York and LA Spark the American Punk Revolution! (Part One)
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 mo...
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Season 4
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Episode 1
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57:08
Southern Rock: Coming to Terms with a Complicated Past (Part Two)
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. Lyn...
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Season 3
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Episode 7
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1:00:06
Southern Rock: Coming to Terms with a Complicated Past (Part One)
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 ...
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Season 3
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Episode 6
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1:02:25
Reggae Music: How Jamaica Conquered the World! (Part Two)
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 ...
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Season 3
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Episode 5
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35:07
Reggae Music: How Jamaica Conquered the World! (Part One)
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 Jama...
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Season 3
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Episode 4
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1:04:12
The Masters of Funk: James Brown, the Meters, Sly Stone, Stevie Wonder, George Clinton
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...
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Season 3
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Episode 3
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1:24:31
Jazz Rock Part 2: The Music of Steely Dan, Traffic and Supertramp
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 ...
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Season 3
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Episode 2
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1:32:14
The Other Side of Fusion: Jazz Rock
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, am...
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Season 3
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Episode 1
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1:14:48
Electric Walls of Sound: Jazz Fusion Part 2
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 McLaughli...
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Season 2
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Episode 12
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1:09:51