Michael Feinstein's AMERICAN SONGBOOK Season 2 to Premiere 2/3

Michael Feinstein's AMERICAN SONGBOOK returns for a second season with three new episodes that take viewers on a musical journey across America and through time. This season the acclaimed musician and five-time Grammy®-nominated vocalist goes broader and deeper in his ongoing quest to celebrate and preserve classic 20th century popular song. 

"In our second season, we continue to discover surprises around every corner," says series producer/director Amber Edwards. "And what remarkable corners we turn: the Missisippi Delta, Kansas City, Las Vegas, even Hugh Hefner's Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles. And everywhere we go, we find more evidence of how this music reflects who we are as a people."

Michael Feinstein's AMERICAN SONGBOOK chronicles Feinstein's lifelong mission to keep the Great American Songbook alive, as he champions the lyrics and melodies of songwriters like George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Harold Arlen, Duke Ellington, Johnny Mercer, Irving Berlin, and Rodgers and Hart, all while performing more than 200 shows a year across America. Season Two further illuminates Feinstein's passion for American song, as he travels the country meeting fanatical collectors of sheet music, records, manuscripts and memorabilia, and solves an astonishing musical mystery. Feinstein and his fellow collectors represent a tiny world devoted to saving a gigantic body of work. Their eccentricity makes for a colorful cast of supporting characters.

Filled with generous portions of live performance and a wealth of archival footage that puts the music in historical context, the series offers both an intimate portrait of a multi-talented artist and a fresh appreciation of 20th century popular culture. A genre-defying hybrid format makes the material accessible to viewers who are new to the music and its history, yet also offers sophisticated details and analysis for the connoisseur. Feinstein's knowledge, passion, and obsessions are the perfect device to explore our shared past; he is a likeable yet unusual vessel through which both information and entertainment flow.

The American Society of Composers Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) honored Season One of the series with its Deems Taylor Broadcast Award for Outstanding Musical Content. Season One also received two International Documentary Association Awards nominations, for Best Limited Series and Best Use of Archival Footage.

On the Season Two premiere of Michael Feinstein's AMERICAN SONGBOOK, entitled 'Time Machines', Feinstein investigates the role of technology in preserving yesteryear's great songs and singers. The quest takes him to the Playboy Mansion in L.A., where Hugh Hefner shares rare footage of cabaret singer-pianist Bobby Short and crooner Al Bowlly, who achieved fame in the U.K. and U.S. during the 1930s. The episode airs on PBS on February 3, 2012 at 9:00 pm/ET.

Michael Feinstein was last seen on Broadway in 2010's 'All About Me' along side Dame Edna. In 1990 he appeared in 'Michael Feinstein in Concert: Piano and Voice' and performed on Broadway in 1988 in both Michael Feinstein in Concert: "Isn't It Romantic" and in Michael Feinstein in Concert. He received a special Drama Desk Award in 1988 for celebrating American musical theater songs in 1988.

 

To post a comment, you must register and login.