MixedThe Wall Street JournalA Pulitzer prize-winning biographer, a Grammy Award-winning country-music star, lavish illustrations on glossy, coated stock: It all makes for such an impressive package that the contents of Songs of America, though fitfully compelling, are somewhat disappointing ... draw[ing] occasionally on Mr. Meacham’s previous books and articles on U.S. history and...studded with Mr. McGraw’s thoughts about individual songs, the book is perhaps inevitably uneven. Mr. Meacham plucks captivating details from his sources ... Some chapters, particularly the one covering the Civil War, which gives Frederick Douglass the first and last words, are artfully organized and eloquent. But others are a hodge-podge ... Songs of America omits great swatches of American history ... And the selection of songs is idiosyncratic.
