MASTERPIECE CLASSIC: DOWNTON ABBEY - SEASON 2
Continues Sundays through February 19 at 9:00 p.m.
Created by Emmy-winning writer Julian Fellowes, DOWNTON ABBEY depicts the lives of the noble Crawley family and the staff who serve them, set at their Edwardian country house in 1912. Featuring an all-star cast, including Hugh Bonneville, Emmy-winner Dame Maggie Smith and Elizabeth McGovern. Laura Linney hosts.

MICHAEL FEINSTEIN'S AMERICAN SONGBOOK - SEASON 2
Fridays, February 3 –17 at 9:00 p.m.
(Season 1 repeats Fridays, February 3–17 at 10:00 p.m.)
Joins us 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.”

“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.”

SLAVERY BY ANOTHER NAME
Monday, February 13 at 9:00 p.m.
Explore the little-known story of the labor practices and laws that effectively created a new form of slavery in the South that persisted into the 20th century. Laurence Fishburne narrates.

A Sundance Film Festival selection for 2012, this new documentary based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Wall Street Journal senior writer Douglas A. Blackmon, explores the little-known story of the post-Emancipation era and the labor practices and laws that effectively created a new form of slavery in the South that persisted well into the 20th century. Blackmon examines the concept of “neoslavery,” which sentenced African-Americans to forced labor for violating an array of laws that criminalized their everyday behavior. Actor Laurence Fishburne (“CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” Thurgood) narrates.

AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: CLINTON
Part 1 airs Monday, February 20 at 9:00 p.m.
Part 2 airs Tuesday, February 21 at 8:00 p.m.
Explore the history of an American president who rose from a broken childhood to become one of the most successful politicians in modern American history . From draft dodging to the Dayton Accords, from Monica Lewinsky to a balanced budget, the presidency of William Jefferson Clinton veered between sordid scandal and grand achievement. In CLINTON, the latest installment in the critically acclaimed and successful series of presidential biographies, AMERICAN EXPERIENCE explores the fascinating story of an American president who rose from a broken childhood in Arkansas to become one of the most successful politicians in modern American history and one of the most complex and conflicted characters to ever stride across the public stage. It recounts a career full of accomplishment and rife with scandal, a marriage that would make history and create controversy and a presidency that would define the crucial and transformative period between the fall of the Berlin Wall and 9/11. It follows Clinton across his two terms as he confronted some of the key forces that would shape the future, including partisan political warfare and domestic and international terrorism, and struggled, with uneven success, to define the role of American power in a post-Cold War world. Most memorably, it explores how Clinton’s conflicted character made history, even as it enraged his enemies and confounded his friends. The program features unprecedented access to scores of Clinton insiders including White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers, White House Counsel Bernard Nussbaum, White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta and Deputy Chief of Staff Harold Ickes, as well as interviews with foreign leaders, members of the Republican opposition, childhood friends, staffers from Clinton’s years as governor of Arkansas, biographers and journalists.

GREAT PERFORMANCES: MEPHIS
Friday, February 24 at 9:00 p.m.
Winner of the 2010 Tony Award for Best New Musical, “Memphis” turns the radio dial back to the 1950s to tell the story of a white DJ, named Huey Calhoun (Chad Kimball), whose love of music transcends race lines and airwaves. His romantic interest is Felicia Farrell (Montego Glover), a young black singer whose career is on the rise but who can’t make the break out of segregated clubs on her own. When the two collaborate, her soulful music reaches radio audiences everywhere, and the golden era of early rock ‘n’ roll takes flight. But as things heat up, whether the world is really ready for their music — or their love — is put to a test. With an original story by Joe DiPietro (I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change) and a new score with music by Bon Jovi founding member David Bryan, the production is directed by Christopher Ashley (Xanadu) and choreographed by Sergio Trujillo (Jersey Boys).

AMERICAN MASTERS
CAB CALLOWAY: SKETCHES
Monday, February 27 at 10 p.m.
“Minnie the Moocher,” with its popular refrain “Hi de hi de hi de ho,” was Cab Calloway’s signature song, and Harlem’s famous Cotton Club was his home stage. A singer, dancer and band leader, he was an exceptional figure in the history of jazz: a consummate musician, he charmed audiences around the world with boundless energy, bravado and elegant showmanship. His back glide dance step is the precursor to Michael Jackson’s moonwalk, and his scatting lyrics find their legacy in today’s hip-hop and rap. An ambassador for his race, Calloway was one of the first black musicians to tour the segregationist South, as early as 1932. At the top of his game in the jazz and swing eras of the 30s and 40s, he toured as Sportin’ Life in Porgy and Bess, forever putting his personal stamp on “It Ain’t Necessarily So.” His career flagged until he was rediscovered in 1980’s The Blues Brothers and even on SESAME STREET, becoming a new cult hero of sorts.

BLUEGRASS UNDERGROUND
Continues Sundays, 5:30 p.m.
Taped 333 feet below ground within the labyrinth of Tennessee’s Cumberland Caverns, this 12-part “musical adventure” series features the top established and emerging artists within the bluegrass, new grass, gospel, roots and Americana genres. The artist line-up includes Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder, Cherryholmes, Mountain Heart, 18 South, Darrell Scott, Justin Townes Earle, Will Hoge and Monte Montgomery.