[1] Tom Mankiewicz, who wrote the special, also provided two paragraphs of liner notes for the album.

Explaining the concept behind the album, Mankiewicz writes, "The beat of America is more than a musical experience.

It finds its pulse and rhythms in the very life of the country: the crack of a bat against a baseball, the spinning wheels and pounding machinery of a modern factory, a swinging crowd in New Orleans at Mardi Gras, a saddle twisting desperately against his rider..."[2] The album includes Alpert's only major vocal hit, "This Guy's in Love with You", which became an overnight success following its inclusion during the special in a sequence featuring Alpert and his then-wife Sharon.

1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, reaching the top spot on June 22, 1968, and remaining there for four consecutive weeks.

In his review for Allmusic, music critic Richard S. Ginell wrote the album had a nostalgic quality and wrote, "the tunes by John Pisano and Sol Lake are exquisite, and Alpert's arrangements of songs like "Thanks for the Memory" seem autumnal in quality, as if an era were about to close.