About the Author

Jon Meacham is a Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer. The author of the New York Times bestsellers Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power,  American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, Franklin and Winston, Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush, and The Soul of America, Meacham holds the Carolyn T. and Robert M. Rogers Chair in the American Presidency and is a distinguished visiting professor at Vanderbilt University. He is a contributing writer to The New York Times Book Review, a contributing editor to Time, and a fellow of the Society of American Historians.
 
Tim McGraw is a Grammy Award–winning entertainer, author, and actor who has sold more than fifty million records worldwide and dominated the charts with forty-three number one singles. He is the most played country artist since his debut in 1992, has two New York Times bestselling books to his credit, and has acted in such movies as Friday Night Lights and The Blind Side. McGraw is considered one of the most successful touring acts in the history of country music. His last solo project spawned one of the biggest hit singles of all time, “Humble and Kind,” whose message continues to impact fans around the world.

Reviews

“From hymns that swelled the hearts of revolutionaries to the spirituals that stirred citizens to spill blood for a more perfect Union and the blues- and country-infused beats that aroused change in the 1960s, Jon Meacham and Tim McGraw form an irresistible duo—connecting us to music as an unsung force in our nation's history. Songs of America is not just a cultural journey—it strikes our deepest chords as Americans: patriotism, protest, possibility, creativity, and, at the root of it all, freedom of expression enshrined in our founding document.”—Doris Kearns Goodwin

“The civil rights movement couldn’t have happened without its music, and Jon Meacham and Tim McGraw have written a wonderful and moving account of how the sounds of America helped lead us toward what Dr. King called ‘the Beloved Community.’ This book brings it all back for me—the struggles and the triumphs, the tough days and the transcendent ones.”—John Lewis

“From the songs of the enslaved to the sounds of the civil rights movement, from ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ to Springsteen's ‘The Rising’ after 9/11, Jon Meacham and Tim McGraw have convened a concert in Songs of America. It is a glorious celebration of our diversity—and of the strength that comes from the myriad voices of all races that make us who we are.”—Quincy Jone

“What a gem of a book! To read, to see, to hear the history of America, right and wrong, in song. This is an unusually well-written and moving story; it’s about us and U.S. all at the same time—as intimate as it is majestic in scope and reach.”—Ken Burns