David Bianculli

Where Isbell's Weathervanes sounds like a new attempt to describe the world around him, Crowell's Chicago Sessions has the aura of an old pro who's realized he has a few more life-lessons to share.

Beginning today, PBS presents a new "American Masters" documentary about singer, musician and composer Richard Penniman, famously known as Little Richard. The program focuses on both his impact on popular music as he went in and out of rock 'n' roll and on his complicated, sexually shifting private life. It's called "Little Richard: King And Queen Of Rock 'n' Roll." Our TV critic David Bianculli has this review.

A new two-hour HBO documentary revisits the life and career of Mary Tyler Moore, an actor most famous for playing indelible, very funny and significantly modern everyday women in two excellent TV sitcoms.