<p><span class="deck"> Henry Ford bought a $75,000 Stradivarius, learned to play “Turkey in the Straw,” and tried to teach all those Model T riders how to do-si-do like Grandpa</span> </p>
<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> “It is needless,” wrote his publisher, “to say anything of the writer of ‘Maple Leaf,’ ‘Cascades,’ ‘Sunflower’ or ‘Entertainer.’ You know him.” But this black genius died penniless and all but forgotten</span> </span></p>
<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> No other impresario ever matched the record of the indomitable Max Maretzek in bringing new works and new stars to America</span> </span></p>
<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> How a young New York society matron named Alice Shaw dazzled English royalty with her extraordinary embouchure</span> </span></p>
<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> Americans don’t hesitate to say anything they please about a public performance. But the right to do so wasn’t established until the Cherry Sisters sued a critic who didn’t like their appalling vaudeville act.</span> </span></p>
<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> The ceaseless clatter of cheap pianos from a mid-Manhattan side street was once music to all America</span> </span></p>
<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> The great tenor came to America in 1903, and it was love at first sight—a love that survived an earthquake and some trouble with the police about a woman at the zoo</span> </span></p>
<p><span class="deck">The men and women who labored in the ghostly light of the great screen to make the music that accompanied silent movies were as much a part of the show as Lillian Gish or Douglas Fairbanks.</span></p>
<p><span class="deck">Lorenzo Da Ponte, New York bookseller and Pennsylvania grocer, was a charming ne’er-do-well in the eyes of his fellow Americans. He happened, also, to have written the words for <span class="typestyle"> Don Giovanni</span> and <em><span class="typestyle"> The Marriage of Figaro</span></em>. </span></p>
<p><span class="deck">Robert Johnson died in obscurity in 1938. Since then, he has gradually gained recognition as a genius of American music. Only recently have the facts of his short, tragic life become known.</span></p>
<p><span class="deck">The great Czech composer arrived on these shores a century ago and wrote some of his most enduring masterpieces here. Perhaps more important, he understood better than any American of the day where our musical destiny lay.</span></p>
<p><span class="deck">Ethel Waters was an innovative and terrifically influential singer, and she broke through racial barriers in movies, theater, nightclubs, radio, film, and television, opening doors for everyone who came after her. She deserves to be much better remembered.</span></p>
<p><span class="deck">It’s the fastest-growing music in America. It’s a three-billion-dollar-plus industry. Cable stations devoted to it reach 62,000,000 homes. And yet, says one passionate follower of country music past and present, its story is over. </span></p>
<p><span class="deck">You’ve probably never heard of them, but these ten people changed your life. Each of them is a big reason why your world today is so different from anyone’s world in 1954.</span></p>
<p><span class="deck">Wynton Marsalis believes that America is in danger of losing the truest mirror of our national identity. If that’s the case, we are at least fortunate that, today, jazz’s foremost performer is also its most eloquent advocate.</span></p>
<p><span class="deck"><lead_in> ALBERT MURRAY SEES AMERICAN CULTURE AS AN</lead_in> incandescent fusion of European, Yankee, frontier, and black. And he sees what he calls the “blues idiom” as the highest expression of that culture. </span></p>
<p><span class="deck">Locked in a strange, testy collaboration lit by the fires of a burning world, George M. Cohan and James Cagney produced a masterpiece of popular history in which everything is true except the facts.</span></p>
<p><span class="deck">Bessie Smith was the greatest blues singer of all time, and her influence still permeates popular music, though almost no one listens to her records. Here's an appreciation by an eminent jazz singer.</span></p>
<p><span class="deck">Geoffrey C. Ward, writer of a major new book and 19-hour documentary on the subject, discusses the joys and wonders of our native art form</span></p>
