Meredith Willson marched into the hearts of American music lovers with productions such as the "The Music Man" and "The Unsinkable Molly Brown, " and unforgettable show tunes like "76 Trombones." It is the amazing story of how a youngster with talent and tenacity, possessed with what he would later call a streak of "Iowa stubborn", rose to become one of America's most famous musicians. It is the story of a remarkable career in which Willson: helped scientist Lee deForest in experiments that developed sound for motion pictures, wrote the music for Charlie Chaplin's first "talkie, " wrote a song recorded by the Beatles, and won the first Grammy award ever presented. John C. Skipper is a newspaper journalist whose 35-year career has produced thousands of newspaper columns and five books. John and his wife, Sandi, live in Mason City, Iowa, just a stone's throw from Willson's famous footbridge. They have three grown daughters and one grandchild.