In May 1915, a young American composer oversleeps after a late poker game and misses his morning departure on the RMS Lusitania. That terrible alarm-clock habit saved the life of Jerome Kern, the man who would essentially invent the modern American musical.

This episode dives into the life, contradictions, and monumental legacy of a composer who wrote over 700 songs and re-engineered the very mechanics of how a stage show works. It traces how he transformed Broadway from a shuffle of unconnected songs into integrated, story-driven theater.

• The accidental order of 200 pianos that freed him from the family business and into music school
• How he broke the European waltz with They Didn’t Believe Me and injected jazz progressions into Broadway
• The intimate Princess Theatre shows that fused song and plot into a single storytelling engine
• The staggering gamble of Show Boat and how Old Man River gave serious drama emotional gravity
• The 1929 book auction that netted a fortune just before the crash, and Hammerstein singing at his deathbed