This album has gotten me through many long desert drives: the brass music, of course, is excellent, but for me what really shines is the singing. This is a delightful historical cross-section of American political music, from patriotic hymns to vicious campaign attacks. (The slurs against Buchanan are delicious!) The album is nicely balanced, with a handful of familiar favorites such as the title piece, "Hail to the Chief," all the way down to a sparkling and obscure Sufferage-era utopian piece, "A Hundred Years Hence," which optimistically describes the coming golden age of perfect peace and brotherhood (and sisterhood.) (Which would have happened about 1990...) Slavery and the Civil War are a part of this broad historical tapestry, but do not dominate it: America is too vast to be shoveled into any single pigeonhole issue. For anyone who wrings their hands over the loss of civility in American political discourse, this album is a refreshing reminder that -- we never had it in the first place! And the music is just plain jolly. You'll be whistling the tunes all day!