American Epic explores the pivotal recording journeys at the height of the Roaring Twenties, when music scouts armed with cutting-edge portable recording technology captured the breadth of American music and made it available to the world. Ranging the mountains, prairies, rural villages, and urban ghettos of America, they discovered a wealth of unexpected talent. The recordings they made of the ethnic groups of America helped democratize the nation and gave a voice to all its people: a woman picking cotton in Mississippi, a coal miner in Virginia, or a tobacco farmer in Tennessee could have his or her thoughts and feelings heard on records played in living rooms across the country. These records blended the intertwining strands of Europe, Africa, the Pacific Islands, and the Americas and formed the bedrock for modern music as we know it. Bernard MacMahon and Allison McGourty spent years traveling around the U.S. on a mission to rescue this history. Their account, written with the assistance of author Elijah Wald, continues the journey of the television program and features additional stories, exclusive photographs, and unearthed artwork.