Ken Burns - Country Music

BigWaylon

BigWaylon

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We watched the Ryman concert last night, which I guess was meant to be a promo for the series. There was a fair amount of your standard-issue progressive talk about "powerful women" and such like, but on the whole I wasn't too put off by it. There's only so much you can do to try to make country music and country musicians politically correct. On the other hand, I did miss bits and pieces, so maybe they had the Dixie Chicks come on and bad mouth America for awhile. I dunno.
 
BigWaylon said:
8 parts - 16 hours

DVR is set. Anybody else going to watch it? I think it ought to be pretty good, especially since it basically stops at Cash’s death. Don’t have to suffer through most of the current stuff.

Saw an article about it in a recent EW mag. Found this one online:
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/ken-burns-country-music-history-doc-878470/amp/
Click to expand...


Started watching it a couple of nights ago. Just finished the second part last night. It's pretty good.
 
A buddy of mine told me about this today. I'm looking forward to it based on his recommendation.
 
helluva lot of history in this series, now half-way through, 8 hour ended with death of Patsy Cline think hour six was Hank's death.

the early history is fascinating, and they do a good job of building on that history and following up...did not know Bristol was a hot bed of music in the 20's pre-depression...

this early history builds to more current times, Carter family,"hillbilly" music, HANK... so sad these met with tragic ends.

Off topic, saw two david holt shows last evening from 1999 one on Surry County music, second on Doc.
 
Watched the final episode last night. Great documentary. Only wished it told a little more about Conway Twitty. When you're billed as "The best friend a song ever had" you should have more than one brief mention and the duets.
 
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I love bluegrass. I am fair about 'old' country. Stuff today, no thanks. All that said, it really was a very, very well-done series, and I really enjoyed it.
 
I'll wait until a Sunday were they show the complete documentary from start to finish.

A side note probably not in the documentary is the story of a New York editorial from years past bashing country music claiming there were no world class singers to be found in that fold. Upon reading the article a producer brought Ray Price into the studio and recorded Danny Boy. Needless to say the recording sold great numbers and put the nonbelievers in shock but by doing so sadly converted Mr. Price from a country music singer into a pop/contemporary star. Lucky for us country fans Price had several years of recordings that still show his greatness as well as others of his band, the Cherokee Cowboys.
 
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Watched the first two episodes yesterday. For those on the fence, just do it. In addition to the history of country music, you also learn quite a bit about:
• music in general
• history of BMI/ASCAP
• history of the recording industry
• history of radio stations, radio antennas, advertising on radio

Really enjoying it so far.
 
Watched two more today...

I think the segment on Kris Kristofferson might be my favorite so far.
 
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