The American Songbook

Cole Porter. Duke Ellington. Irving Berlin. Rodgers and Hammerstein. Singer, revivalist Michael Feinstein and the Boston Pops’ Keith Lockhart on the Great American Songbook.

The “Great American Songbook” is a river of classic songs that runs from, let’s say, 1910 to the age of rock and roll.

You can argue about what belongs and what doesn’t, but nobody argues about the songs at the heart of it. If you’re singing "Stardust” or “Singin’ in the Rain” or “Mood Indigo” or “Begin the Beguine,” you’re in.

What made it? What makes it last? Today, we’ll ask two of it’s top interpreters.

Guests:

Michael Feinstein, singer, pianist, great American songbook revivalist. Creator of the PBS Series “Michael Feinstein’s American Songbook.” Founder, Michael Feinstein Foundation for the Preservation of the Great American Songbook in Carmel, Ind.

Keith Lockhart, conductor of the Boston Pops, the BBC Concert Orchestra and the Brevard Music Center.