Two legendary singer/songwriters showcase their insightful and down-to-earth performance styles that have shaped America’s musical landscape with songs like “American Pie” and “Both Sides Now.”
- Insightful songwriter Don McLean, whose noteworthy songs include “Vincent,” “Crying,” and “Castles in the Air,” was inaugurated into the National Academy of Popular Music’s Songwriters’ Hall of Fame and was awarded the BBC Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012.
- McLean’s seminal 1971 ode, “American Pie,” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and voted No. 5 in a poll of the 365 “Songs of the Century” compiled by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts.
- McLean’s newest release, Addicted to Black (2009), is “a frothy, frequently tongue-in-cheek set of songs in a breezy style that draws on bluegrass and early rock ’n’ roll.” —Mail on Sunday
- The career of angelic soprano Judy Collins has spanned more than 5 decades, embracing an eclectic musical palette that includes folk, cabaret, pop, and show tunes. She won a Grammy for best folk performance in 1968 for “Both Sides Now.”
- To commemorate 50 years as a recording artist, Collins recorded Live from the Metropolitan Museum of Art at the Temple of Dendur in 2012 which revisits some of the singer’s most famous songs such as “Send in the Clowns” and “Mr. Tambourine Man.” In its review of the album AllMusic.com says, “[Collins’s] voice is actually richer and her range wider than in her hit-making years.”
- “The least melodramatic of singers, Ms. Collins has a pure, vibratoless soprano with an angelic, churchlike ring.”—The New York Times
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