Something Wonderful: Exploring the Great American Songbook

Something Wonderful: Exploring the Great American Songbook

This series takes listeners on a song-by-song journey through the Great American Songbook. In each episode, they delve into a particular song or collection of standards, offering historical context, musical commentary, and reflections on how the piece fits into the broader canon of American popular music. Through insightful analysis and storytelling, John and Adam explore the lives of the songwriters, the cultural and social backdrop of the era, the song’s evolution in recordings and performances, and what gives it enduring appeal. The podcast aims both to educate lovers of classic American music and to revive deeper appreciation for these timeless songs.

Episodes

  1. JAN 16

    Ep. 5 – Hammerstein & Sondheim: Mentor, Protégé, and the Changing American Musical

    In this episode, John and Adam explore one of the most consequential—and unlikely—relationships in the history of the American musical: the mentorship and friendship between Oscar Hammerstein II and Stephen Sondheim. What began as a chance family connection grew into a formative bond that bridged two eras of musical theater and reshaped the Great American Songbook. The hosts trace how Hammerstein became a surrogate father to a young Sondheim, offering emotional refuge, artistic guidance, and famously blunt criticism that helped shape one of Broadway’s most distinctive voices. Through vivid stories and musical examples, they contrast Hammerstein’s optimistic, humanistic worldview with Sondheim’s darker, more ironic sensibility—examining how each man’s life experience found its way into his lyrics. From South Pacific and The Sound of Music to West Side Story, Gypsy, Company, and beyond, John and Adam follow Sondheim’s evolution from devoted apprentice to fully independent artist. Along the way, they debate the role of optimism versus realism in musical theater, the purpose of art as escape or confrontation, and whether beauty must always be comforting. The episode closes with a moving reflection on Hammerstein’s generosity as a teacher and Sondheim’s lasting legacy as his most complex—and consequential—student. It’s a conversation about mentorship, artistic inheritance, and how one great lyricist helped create another by teaching him to write his own truth.

    1h 18m

About

This series takes listeners on a song-by-song journey through the Great American Songbook. In each episode, they delve into a particular song or collection of standards, offering historical context, musical commentary, and reflections on how the piece fits into the broader canon of American popular music. Through insightful analysis and storytelling, John and Adam explore the lives of the songwriters, the cultural and social backdrop of the era, the song’s evolution in recordings and performances, and what gives it enduring appeal. The podcast aims both to educate lovers of classic American music and to revive deeper appreciation for these timeless songs.