"America's Songs tells the stories behind the greatest songs ever to emerge from the Broadway musical, Hollywood movies, and the music industry of Tin Pan Alley. Heard in stage revivals, film soundtracks, jazz and cabaret, and recorded by performers as diverse as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Linda Ronstadt, Willie Nelson, and Rod Stewart, these songs are the closest thing America has to a classical repertoire of song. In addition to recounting each song's inspiration, creation, and enduring popularity, America's Songs shows how these "standards" mirror American life from the years before World War I through the years after Vietnam."--BOOK JACKET.