Washoe County Library System

Focusing on the years 1971 to the present, the DJ, producer, and Sundance award-winning director chooses one essential track from each year, revealing the pivotal role that American music plays around issues of race, gender, politics, and identity.

"From one of the preeminent cultural critics of her generation, a radiant weave of memoir, criticism, and biography that tells the story of black women in music--from the Dixie Cups to Gladys Knight to Janet, Whitney, and Mariah-- as the foundational story of American pop"--

Documentary on the public and private live of the Carter family whose music captured the attention of a nation entering the darkest days of the depression with such songs as "Keep on the sunnyside." Behind the simple, memorable songs their own private lives were more complicated. By drawing upon rarely seen photographs, memorabilia and archival footage, tells the bittersweet story of these influential pioneers whose songs and style laid the foundations...

Bill Medley's indelible baritone adorns some of the biggest hits of the twentieth century—"You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'," "(You're My) Soul and Inspiration," "Rock and Roll Heaven"—and is prominent on the soundtrack of an entire generation. He and his musical partner, the late inimitable Bobby Hatfield, formed the Righteous Brothers in 1963 and forever changed the sound of popular music. The term "blue-eyed soul" was born. After the Phil Spector-produced...

""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,...