Six-episode music driven doc-series features original songs celebrating everyday heroes

Across the country, in every community, unsung heroes are quietly working to improve the lives of others. Their inspiring efforts often receive little fanfare — until now. American Anthems, a new six-episode series from PBS, NBCUniversal Syndication Studios and Believe Entertainment Group, celebrates these everyday heroes with surprise songs from today’s biggest country music stars, including Jennifer Nettles, Lee Brice, The War and Treaty, Lindsay Ell, Cam and Ruston Kelly. The series premieres on Friday, June 24th and runs through July 29th from 10-10:30 pm ET on PBS, PBS.org and the PBS Video app.

Each episode will follow a different featured country star as they meet a local hero and learn about the transformative experience that inspired their commitment to making a positive change in their community. Then, working with a celebrated songwriter — including Sugarland’s Kristian Bush, collaborators Billy Montana and Adam Wood, and Bill Sherman — the country star will secretly turn the hero’s story of kindness, hard work and perseverance into an epic original song. At the end of the episode, the hero will be surprised with a once-in-a-lifetime performance of the powerful anthem by the artist while surrounded by family and friends.

“American Anthems is an amazing show that truly captures how simple acts of kindness result in larger-than-life outcomes,” states Brice. “A good country song is like a good deed — they are simple, heartfelt stories with long-lasting impact.”

Among the six heroes honored on the series are a father who started a nonprofit to help families of cancer patients while undergoing cancer treatment himself and a former police officer who founded an organization that supports survivors of sexual abuse after struggling to recover from her own attack. Viewers will also meet a service-oriented young woman whose nonprofit provides free laundry days in low-income areas; an enterprising public school board member who has made it her mission to collect books featuring Black characters for children who otherwise would not have access to diverse stories; a military veteran working to save retired police and military K-9s; and a creative performing arts director who teaches theater to intellectually disabled adults.

Directed by two-time Country Music Association Award winner Wes Edwards, American Anthems is a co-production of NBCUniversal Syndication Studios and Believe Entertainment Group. The series was made possible by Chick-fil-A and Heroes Vacation Club, a service of Travel + Leisure Co.