Ken Burns Country Music Documentary

Yeah, they just discussed the Byrds during the time he was with them.

 

Well, Ralph Emery who was featured quite a bit in the series was memorialized in the Byrds’ song, Drugstore Truck Driving Man because of those prejudiced feelings he had toward the longhairs.

 

No Slim Whitman!
No Dick Curless!
No David Allen Coe!

 

I still liked it.

 

Great Documentary. Really glad they ended it in the time period that they did. I really learned so much about the music my parents liked and the I ignored in the 60's; I'm slowly becoming a fan!.......But...No Ray Stevens, Why?

 

And I was surprised of no mention of Clarence White in his earlier context of The Kentucky Colonels, who in the '60's were pivotal in reviving original Bluegrass with amazing virtuosity- but I guess you can't get to everyone

 

I'm watching Episode 8 - do they actually omit any mention of Brent Mason in this travesty?

 

Many posts have listed significant artists who were either given short shrift or overlooked entirely. Maybe Ken Burns simply needs to do a weekly series on this subject......plan on about a three or four season run.

 

Nice how they digressed and explained the
Nashville/Texas connection and Townes VanZandt stuff.
I had no idea Kris Kristoferson was a rhoades scholar
went Oxford and was a helicopter pilot in Germany.

 

There's got to be dozens of hours they left on the cutting room floor. Y'all are asking for the extended version of a 16 hour movie!
The doc does give pretty extended time to the personal lives of the artists, with plenty of debauchery described. It also gives quite a bit of time to non-country or country-adjacent stars in a weird way to me. Does the obvious and well known fact that Dylan dabbled in country make the music any more or less "legit"? I guess it does if you really have never liked or appreciated country. But Dylan didn't, as far as I can see, have any influence whatsoever on country music.

Similarly, In Ep 6 they spent more time on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band than they did on Hee-Haw, which seems like another very weird choice that illustrates how this is not designed for people who love country music already. They could have just dropped in a full episode of Hee-Haw and talked about how rooted in tradition it all was, and it would have been a great use of the time.

So I am enjoying very much what is on the screen but also wishing the whole thing was quite different.

PS as far as I can tell there was no discussion whatsoever of the incorporation of Hawaiian guitar and the eventual development of the pedal steel, in the same manner they discussed the banjo in Ep1. I don't see how you can omit that and then decide to include yet another story about how poor and abusive everyone's alcoholic parents were.

 

Overall, good. Glad it was made, for sure. Still some things stick in my craw...same as I mentioned earlier: Ray Price. As much as they did on folks like Kristofferson, and Ray Price (someone who actually changed/propelled the genre forward) gets essentially a quick mention as occasionally providing a tanked Hank Williams a place to crash during rough patches with the Mrs.??? Bizarre.

Also, I thought the thinly-veiled social commentary got less and less thinly veiled as the episodes progressed. Unfortunate. I don't need to be made to feel good/justified about liking C&W. It stands on its own quite well, thank you.

 

I think you could extend your wonderful metaphor to include the entire digestive cycle...especially its culmination.

 

I'm curious if this will help Country Music sales or radio? Possibly. But like many have said, "I'd rather just watch an episode of Hee=Haw."

Personally, I blame Austin City Limits for my love of country music. And Albert Lee.

 

Kris landed a helicopter on Mr. Cash's lawn in order to pitch Sunday Morning Coming Down.

JR met him there with a shotgun.

It was tense for a little while but the song was later cut and the rest is history.

 

I've heard it before, but helicopter pilot or not, this story sounds apocryphal. Is there any evidence?

 

Anyone catch that photo of Waylon in Tuesday's episode where he was playing a blackguard with a toggle switch installed on the lower horn/cutaway? Wonder what that was all about...

 

Speaking of Carlene Carter and Albert Lee, here they both are in a video they played every 10 minutes on CMT back in the day.

It also features Levon, Benmont Tench, and the massively talented Howie Epstein. Howie was Petty’s bassist for 20 years or so and played everything, was a great harmony vocalist, producer - and boyfriend and drug buddy of Carlene . Those two had many scrapes with the law until finally - he died.




By the way, I have one and a half episodes left and someone told me they skate by the Eagles? I am not at all a fan but I also recognize the massive influence they eventually had back on country artists themselves .

Maybe that was later than the doc goes ?

 

Can someone explain to me why this song makes me cry?
I'm not a generally sensitive type, and it's really not a tear-jerker, as they go

I mean,"Will the Circle Be Unbroken" of "Go Rest High on that Mountain", I get that, but why this one? It's a puzzle to me.

I guess I just love country music, the real thing

 

it is the juxtaposition of the building of a great nation and great, powerful, world shrinking technologies and the return home of a great, loved man to his home for burial. It is kind of wistful in its way and a very sad song... Triumph and loss.