"I called in every favor, from Stephen Sondheim to Gloria Estefan ... and they all took the call, and all wished they could do more," Lin-Manuel Miranda said of his latest project on "Today."
The writer and performer is back at the top of the charts — the cast album of "Hamilton," Lin-Manuel Miranda's 2016 Pulitzer winner in Drama, went to No. 1. This time, he's raising money and awareness for those affected by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.
Miranda gathered more than a dozen musicians to collaborate on "Almost Like Praying." Proceeds benefit the Hispanic Federation's Unidos Disaster Relief Fund.
Miranda said the song came about because he "felt as helpless as anyone with family on the island, or friends on the island."
"There was a terrible sort of silence, breakdown in communications, their power grid destroyed, cell towers destroyed, and what I saw on my Facebook feed, and I'm sure a lot of other Latinos feel the same way, was this roll call of towns," he said on "CBS This Morning."
The song calls out all 78 towns.
He also shared a video of himself as a teenager with Stephen Colbert, singing about coming back to New York after a trip to Puerto Rico to visit family members, and shared his and the other vocalists' memories of happier times in their hometowns.
Miranda's first nod from the Pulitzer Board came in 2009, when he was a finalist for the Drama prize with Quiara Alegría Hudes for "In the Heights,"a musical about struggling Latino immigrants in New York City today that celebrates the virtues of sacrifice, family solidarity and gritty optimism.
"Almost Like Praying" riffs on the song "Maria" from the 1957 musical "West Side Story" — with lyrics by 1985 Pulitzer winner Stephen Sondheim and music by frequent Pulitzer entrant Leonard Bernstein.