An Original Musical Review Created Specifically for Stereo
Stan Freberg originally envisioned The United States of America as a four album production, each album being 45 minutes in length. He states in his autobiography that these four volumes were going to be:
| The Early Years | From Columbus to the end of the Revolution |
| The Middle Years | From after the Revolution to the end of the Civil War |
| The Late Years | From after the Civil War to the end of World War I |
| The Late, Late Years | From after World War I to the present |
The forty-five minute length of each volume, and hence this four volume structure, was heavily influenced by technical limitations of vinyl LPs, which could not contain more than 45 minutes of material. With the advent of CD technology, in which each individual CD can contain around 70 minutes, the same amount of material that was planned for these four volumes will now most likely be able to fit in three volumes.
Note that The Middle Years as it was finally
released covered the time range originally intended for Volumes
Two and Three.
