Nat Shapiro is a distinguished critic and historian of popular and classical music. He is the author of An Annotated Index of American Popular Songs (six volumes) and coauthor of The Jazz Makers and Hear Me talkin' to Ya (with Nat Hentoff). In addition he has produced hundreds of records- from Barbra Streisand and Lotte Lenya to Mahalia Jackson and Michel LeGrand.

• One Music is Music Does Music Means.- Two Creators and Components.- 1. Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm.- 2. Composers and Composition.- 3. The Avant-Garde.- Three Exponents.- 1. Conductors and Conducting.- 2. Instruments and Instrumentalists.- 3. Pianos and Pianists, Violins and/or Fiddles, Woodwinds, and Guitars.- Violins and/or Fiddles.- Woodwinds.- Guitars.- 4. Concerts.- 5. The Music Trade.- Four Proponents and Opponents.- 1. Critics and Criticism.- 2. Musical Misanthropy.- Five Lift Every Voice.- 1. Words and/with/for/to Music.- 2. The Wings of Song.- 3. Singing and Singers.- 4. Opera and Opera Singers.- Six The Universal Art.- 1. The Medicine of a Troubled Mind.- 2. Emotions, Vapors, and Dispositions.- 3. The Food of Love.- 4. The Lingering Melody.- 5. Let Me Have Music Dying.- 6. Solitude.- 7. Warriors Fired with Animated Sounds.- 8. Consort Not with a Female Musician.- 9. Sing Me a Song with Social Significance.- 10. The Only Sensual Pleasure Without Vice.- 11. The Truth of Song.- 12. Tones in Time.- 13. Education.- 14. The Gift of God.- 15. The Soul of a Nation.- 16. The Sweetest Physic in the World.- 17. The Open-Air Art.- 18. A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread.- 19. Like the Birdies Sing.- 20. Sight and Sound.- Seven Music for the Millions.- 1. Jazz.- 2. Blues and Blacks.- 3. Rock.- 4. Popular and Light.- 5. Folk.- 6. Dance.- 7. Film and Theater.- Eight Metaphysics, Metaphor, and Miscellany.- 1. The Music of the Spheres.- 2. Music as Metaphor.- 3. Proverbs, Aphorisms, Wordplay, and Assorted Musical Saws.- Index of Names and Sources.- Index of Key Words and Phrases.