America was meant to be a light on the hill — a place others looked to when they needed to find their own way forward.

If America has ever truly been that light, it came from its music. From the people who suffered the most and somehow still found something worth singing about.

From colonial taverns to protest marches in the Eastern Bloc, from gospel churches to a ghetto in Soweto, American rhythms helped people band together, speak truth, and refuse to quit. Our songs became the world's songs — not because we exported them, but because people who needed hope reached out and claimed them as their own.

American Song tells the stories of the artists who made the music and the people who were moved by it. One era at a time. One genre, one band, one song at a time. Music that started by campfires, in cotton fields, in churches and juke joints — and moved out into the world to become something larger than any one nation could contain.

This is American Song.