NEW YORK — Although Janet Reno is credited as the executive producer of “Song of America,” a three-compact-disc boxed set that chronicles the history of the United States in song, she is quick to downplay her role.
“I had the easy way,” Reno, the former U.S. attorney general, said in a recent interview.
But while her nephew-in-law, producer Ed Pettersen, may have done a lot of the heavy lifting on “Song of America,” which features new interpretations of seminal songs like “Dixie’s Land” and “The Times They Are A Changin’,” the set reflects Reno’s vision. Through 50 songs, reinterpreted by artists including John Mellencamp, the Black Crowes, Martha Wainwright and Devendra Banhart, the story of America and the different challenges it has faced, from war to racism to the Depression, is retold for today’s audiences.
Although Reno, 69, is slowed these days by Parkinson’s disease, she was forceful and passionate when she spoke about “Song of America,” which has been about a decade in the making.
Q: You’ve been working on this project for a while. What inspired you to do this project?
A: My niece was visiting with her husband, Ed Pettersen. Ed played two pieces that he had helped compose, or composed himself, that talked about various parts of American history and I said, “Ed, why don’t you write a song of America, a history of America?” He went after it, and it was just amazing to see what he did.
Q: You could have just gotten archival recordings of these songs. What made you want to give them a new interpretation?
A: That was Ed’s doing with his other colleagues who contributed so significantly to this project. They wanted something that represented a real sense of the song and what is involved. We found, for example, a new version of “Dixie” could illuminate the fact that you’ve got to have “Dixie” as part of a project like this if you’re going to tell the history of America because that is one of the essential pieces of our history — one that we’re not proud of.
Q: What were some of the more inspiring songs to you in your life?
A: “John Brown’s Body” is one of the songs that has meant so much to me, and this particular recording is just exceptional. It’s a beautiful piece. That, with the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” are two songs that spell out what the war was about, and what we tried to do here is divide it into segments of united we stand, divided we fall.Q: What do you hope this CD can accomplish?
A: I think they can learn more about their country, I think they can be inspired by what they hear, from some of these songs. To come out of the Depression into World War II, into the greatest war we have ever had, and to face the challenge of the atomic bomb, ever present after that war, gives us a sense of the challenge we face. But it’s also there to say, ‘Look, we did it, we can overcome, we can get past this time in our history.’
