"but He Doesn't Know the Territory"

Meredith Willson (1902–1984) was a renowned composer, songwriter, and musician. He is best known for Meredith Willson’s The Music Man and composing the music for The Unsinkable Molly Brown.Michael Feinstein is a Grammy-nominated entertainer and educator. He is founder of the Great American Songbook Foundation and author of The Gershwins and Me: A Personal History in Twelve Songs.

"This is the first-person perspective of a deeply canny and meticulous chronicler who managed to preserve the creative process as if it were spontaneously happening, catching the mundane moments and details that illuminate and humanize the story. The moment-to-moment ups and downs, ins and outs, and subtly shifting creative process that careen forward like a roller coaster all somehow make sense, and those details illustrate in most vivid terms what it feels like to solve a puzzle for which you’re not certain you have all the pieces."-Michael Feinstein, from the Foreword"Dollars to doughnuts, Meredith Willson dotes on brass bands. In The Music Man, he has translated the thump and razzle-dazzle of brass-band lore into a warm and genial cartoon of American life."-Brooks Atkinson, New York Times, 1957