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Copyright Hudson West Productions

The PBS Series
Cultural History, Intimate Biography, and a Front Row Seat to Great Live Performances

Michael Feinstein and Hugh Hefner check out Hef’s vintage Wurlitzer jukebox in the Playboy Mansion’s fabled “Game House.”

Michael Feinstein and Hugh Hefner check out Hef’s vintage Wurlitzer jukebox in the Playboy Mansion’s fabled “Game House.”
source: Dave Davidson, Hudson West Productions

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. “I don’t know if it’s some sort of karmic thing that I am supposed to be given all of these recordings and pieces of music to preserve,” Feinstein says in the show,“but it’s clear that for whatever reason, it is also my responsibility to share it and get it out there.”

"Baby Rose Marie", the child star, who had her own radio program in the 1930s.

“Baby Rose Marie”, the child star, who had her own radio program in the 1930s.
source: Rose Marie

“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.

Count Basie playing piano

Count Basie, one of the jazz greats who helped create the distinctive Kansas City sound, used to play regularly at the Mutual Musicians Association, the black musicians union.
source: UMKC Libraries,
Dr. Kenneth J. LaBudde,
Dept. of Special Collections

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 New York Times called Season One “a quirky, thoughtful mélange of history and biography” and the American Society of Composers Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) honored it 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.

Michael plays one of Liberace’s rhinestone encrusted pianos in the now-closed Liberace Museum in Las Vegas. Liberace used to travel with his own glazier who was responsible for re-gluing all the rhinestones on his pianos and cars that were damaged in transport.

Michael plays one of Liberace’s rhinestone encrusted pianos in the now-closed Liberace Museum in Las Vegas. Liberace used to travel with his own glazier who was responsible for re-gluing all the rhinestones on his pianos and cars that were damaged in transport.
source: Dave Davidson, Hudson West Productions

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check your local PBS listings to watch the 3 part series