Multi-talented actress, producer and writer Rita Wilson announced on February 09,2012 that she will make her solo album debut with the release of AM/FM, on Decca Records May 8, 2012. The album contains 14 tracks, carefully curated by Wilson along with her producer Fred Mollin.  Wilson is best known for her acting roles in more than 28 films and numerous television programs.

Rita was the driving force behind My Big Fat Greek Wedding and produced the film musical Mamma Mia! She also starred as Roxie Hart on Broadway in the musical Chicago.   A lifelong passion for music brought her many talents full circle to deliver an album release that is an extremely personal endeavor.  She chose songs for the album that resonated emotionally with her, that told a story and evoked the era of the 60s and 70s which sparked her singing desires.

“That time period was hugely influential on me as a kid and as a teenager,” she says. “I’d spend hours and hours lying on my bed, holding up the albums, reading the liner notes, and learning all the words to these songs that expressed what I was feeling or fantasizing about.”

AM/FM is an intimate, elegant and beautifully sung collection of classics from the ’60s and ’70s that together, make up the soundtrack to her life. “The song sequence on the album tells a story of a very innocent, idealized version of love in the ‘AM’ section, before it shifts to the ‘FM’ section and becomes more about the disillusionment that happens after you’ve had some heartbreaks” Wilson says.

The album is essentially divided into two sections. The first half, “AM,” features songs from the ’60s that Wilson remembers singing along to on AM radio while riding in the back seat of her parents’ car and that recall the “lovely innocence and hopefulness of the time”: “All I Have To Do Is Dream,” “Never My Love,” “Cherish,” “Come See About Me,” “Angel Of The Morning,” “Walking In The Rain,” “Wichita Lineman” (written by Jimmy Webb who also plays piano on Wilson’s version), and “You Were On My Mind.”

By the time Wilson got her own car (a Datsun 2000 Roadster) at age 17, popular music lived on FM radio. She became enamored with the folk-rock singer-songwriters who dominated those airwaves in the early ’70s and her favorite songs make up the “FM” half: “Good Time Charlie’s Got The Blues,” “Love Has No Pride,” “Please Come To Boston,” “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” “Faithless Love,” and “River”.

“As I got older, I began to understand that not everything had a happy ending,” Wilson says, “so I was drawn to songs by women who wrote about how love was not always the dream fantasy; that there was pain and disappointment involved.”

AM/FM was recorded last spring at the legendary Capitol Records Studio A in Hollywood.  Augmenting Wilson’s exquisite vocal performances are appearances by special guests Chris Cornell, Sheryl Crow,Jimmy Webb, Jackson Browne, Faith Hill, Vince Gill, and Patty Scialfa (who also produced “Come See About Me”).

Featureflash / Shutterstock.com

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Tony Bennett made music history with the Grammy-nominated CD Duets II when it debuted at the top of the Billboard Album charts, making Bennett the oldest vocal artist ever to achieve the number one spot. Recently nominated for three Grammys, including Best Traditional Pop Vocal, Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, and Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s), the critically acclaimed album followed the 85-year-old singer’s Grammy-winning 2006 Duets CD, which had, in turn, been released in honor of his 80th birthday.

Tony Bennett: Duets II, a presentation of THIRTEEN’s Great Performances, features the singer’s greatest hits, performed by Bennett and today’s biggest stars, including John Mayer, Michael Buble, k.d. lang, Sheryl Crow, Willie Nelson, Queen Latifah, Norah Jones, Josh Groban, Faith Hill, Alejandro Sanz, Carrie Underwood and more.

The sessions, filmed to capture the magic of these performers singing with the master of the Great American Songbook, airs on Friday, January 27, 2012, at 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings).

Great Performances is a production of THIRTEEN for WNET, one of America’s most prolific and respected public media providers. For nearly 50 years, WNET has been producing and broadcasting national and local arts programming to the New York community.

The album took more than six months to record, with each track recorded face-to-face with his singer partners in studios around the world, from LA to Nashville to London.  Among the many highlights is Amy Winehouse’s last recorded track (“Body and Soul”), which was produced in London’s famous Abbey Road Studios in March. Other tracks were recorded in New York in late July: the Richard Rodgers-Lorenz Hart classic, “The Lady Is a Tramp,” with Lady Gaga, and the Alan and Marilyn Bergman classic, “How Do You Keep the Music Playing,” with Aretha Franklin , and “Stranger in Paradise,” with Andrea Bocelli , recorded at the singer’s Italian home (see full track listing below).

The CD received kudos from all quarters. The Wall Street Journal noted that the singer was “…constantly reaffirming his position as pop music’s greatest living patriarch,” and Associated Press observed, “Tony Bennett is as timeless as the songs he sings on ‘Duets II.’”

The musical segments are highlighted by insights on the process from the performers, making for an up-close look at one of the year’s most celebrated recordings. The sessions were filmed by Oscar-winning cinematographer Dion Beebe (“Chicago,” “Memoirs of a Geisha,” “Collateral”), providing a personal, behind-the-scenes look at Bennett’s latest collaborations and his artistic approach with each song.

Entering his seventh decade as a recording artist with more than 100 albums and 15 Grammy Awards including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, Bennett has earned his legendary status many times over. He remains the Columbia recording artist with the greatest longevity at the label. His 2007 primetime special, “Tony Bennett:  An American Classic,” won seven Emmy Awards and was directed by Academy Award winner Rob Marshall.

He has performed for Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama. He also worked with and marched alongside Martin Luther King in his 1965 civil rights march and was honored with the Martin Luther King’s Salute to Greatness Award.

In addition to performing, he is a visual artist as well, with three of his original paintings featured in the permanent collection at the Smithsonian, including his portraits of Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington. His humanitarian efforts are renowned, and the United Nations honored him with their Humanitarian Award in 2007.

He has published three books — his autobiography, The Good Life, and two collections of his paintings,Tony Bennett: What My Heart Has Seen and Tony Bennett in the Studio: A Life of Art and Music. Bennett founded, in association with the Department of Education in New York City, the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts — a public arts high school in his hometown of Astoria, Queens. With his wife, Susan, he established Exploring the Arts, a charitable organization that supports arts education in NYC public high schools. Exploring the Arts supports 14 public high schools throughout New York City.

In the fall of 2007, a documentary of Bennett’s life and career, produced by Clint Eastwood, “Tony Bennett: The Music Never Ends,” aired on THIRTEEN’s American Masters on PBS.

The full song program follows:

“The Lady Is a Tramp” (Lady Gaga)
“One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)” (John Mayer)
“Body and Soul” (Amy Winehouse)
“Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” (Michael Buble)
“Blue Velvet” (k.d. lang)
“How Do You Keep the Music Playing” (Aretha Franklin)
“The Girl I Love” (Sheryl Crow)
“On the Sunny Side of the Street” (Willie Nelson)
“Who Can I Turn To (When Nobody Needs Me)” (Queen Latifah)
“Speak Low” (Norah Jones)
“This Is All I Ask” (Josh Groban)
“Watch What Happens” (Natalie Cole)
“Stranger in Paradise” (Andrea Bocelli)
“The Way You Look Tonight” (Faith Hill)
“Yesterday I Heard the Rain” (Alejandro Sanz)
“It Had to Be You” (Carrie Underwood)

Image Courtesy of  Tony Bennett

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