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Contemporary artists give a fresh interpretation to fifty of America's most memorable songs in the new compilation "Song of America."

Music serves as history's placeholder. Whether it is a song that conjures up an indelible personal memory for the individual listener or it is a tune written to commemorate a specific event such as Crosby Stills Nash & Young's "Ohio," songs instantly transport us back to a place and time.

That ability is what makes "Song of America" so captivating. The 3-CD, 50-song set, in stores now, tells the history of the United States through music. Many of the tunes are instantly familiar—"Yankee Doodle," "Over There," "Happy Days are Here Again" and "I Am Woman"—while others may be new to listeners.

The unlikely creator of the set is former Attorney General Janet Reno. Her niece's husband, musician Ed Pettersen, played Reno some of his tunes that included great historical details. She questioned if a history of America existed in some compiled form and the idea for "Song of America" was born.

Reno and Pettersen linked with David Macias to take the concept from a notion to reality. Nashville-based Macias runs 31 Tigers Records, and is a Grammy winner for Best traditional folk album for his work on "Beautiful Dreamer: The Songs of Stephen Foster."

All songs but "Lakota Dream Song" were re-recorded for the project with artists given free reign to interpret the song through a filter of their choosing. "It was never the idea to use the originals," Macias says. "I like the idea of Bettye LaVette singing about the AIDS epidemic [on "Streets of Philadelphia'] since its ravaging the black community now." He also notes that it would have proved extremely difficult to try to license the original versions of the songs. In addition to LaVette, among the artists on the compilation are John Mellencamp, Jim Lauderdale, Devendra Banhart, Kim Richey, Janis Ian, Blind Boys of Alabama, Take 6, Beth Nielsen Chapman and many more.

The set takes 1492 as its starting point and weaves through the major eras of this country's development including colonial, revolutionary, westward expansion, Civil War, WWI, the Depression, WWII, the Woman's Movement, the ‘60s and more. It takes the listener up through Sept. 11, 2001 with the Wrights' stirring remake of Alan Jackson's "Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning."

To Macias and Pettersen's surprise, there were certain key events or pivotal times that had not been immortalized in song such as Andrew Jackson's presidency and the political change it ushered in; "We really looked all over, we just couldn't find anything," Macias says.

It was the same with the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, which is largely considered the birth of the women's movement. In the one song composed specifically for the CD, poet/storyteller Minton Sparks recites the Declaration of Sentiments from the Seneca Convention over a musical bed created by guitarist Pat Flynn.

Another era that left Macias wanting musically was the early days of the gay movement. "I was disappointed that we didn't find anything. We wanted to use songs that had entered the public consciousness," he says. "I wanted to find something [from Stonewall]; it illustrated a change in philosophy." But those missing moments are few and negligible compared with the bounty captured on these discs.

A portion of the proceeds from the sale of the set will go to music and history education programs. But parents need not wait for a formal program as the collection makes a great tool for a family to have an entertaining and melodic history lesson. Furthermore, you don't even need kids to delve into "Song of America" at all. I had a blast listening to the discs as I looked up certain events on the internet. Heck, I felt smarter just reading the liner notes. "Song of America" will entertain you and educate you in a totally pain-free way.

What could be better than that?

Melinda Newman is a Los Angeles-based entertainment journalist who writes for the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, Associated Press, the Hollywood Reporter and a number of other outlets. She is the former West Coast Bureau Chief for Billboard. Her love of music goes back to when she was a small girl who used to write down all the songs on "Casey Kasem's Top 40 Countdown" - lovingly and obsessively - on purple, lined notebook paper. She can be reached at melindanewman@ca.rr.com.