American Masters

- Season 22

(2007)

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Ahmet Ertegun created a new genre of music that combined the African-American music of 1940s Washington, D.C., with the European sensibility.

The Authorized biography of Les Paul, " The Wizard of Waukesha". The name Les Paul is synonymous with the electric guitar. As a player, inventor, and recording artist(Paul had two #1 hits with his wife Mary Ford), Paul has been and innovator from the early years of his life. In 1928, thirteen-year-old Les Paul borrowed a phonograph needle from the family Victrola, stuck it under the strings of his Sear Roebuck guitar, and wired the contraption to a telephone mike and two radio speakers, thus achieving not only amplification but a crude stereo effect. The pioneering ...

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John James Audubon is best known for The Birds of America, a book of 435 images, portraits of every bird then known in the United States - painted and reproduced in the size of life. Its creation cost Audubon eighteen years of monumental effort in finding the birds, making the book, and selling it to subscribers. Audubon also wrote thousands of pages about birds (Ornithological Biography); he'd completed half of a collection of paintings of mammals (The Viviparous Quadrapeds of North America) when his eyesight failed in 1846. His story is a dramatic and surprising one...

Archival footage, live performances, and interviews conducted by none other than Clint Eastwood depict the life and career of Tony Bennett.

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The life and career of the American cartoonist who created the Peanuts comic strip.

Comedienne Carol Burnett's early show business aspirations were to perform in live theater on Broadway, craving the instant gratification from a live audience. Her sensibilities were shaped by going to "happy" movies in the 1940s and 1950s, the story lines for which made it seem like anything was possible. These movie going experiences were in part a mechanism to escape her difficult home life, which was nonetheless loving. Based on her early work, professionals around her saw her comedic talents and steered her in the direction of stand-up and sketch comedy. Her life in sketch ...