Ken Burns' COUNTRY MUSIC Documentary

HOWWWWWWWWW-DEEEEE.

Already been a couple of interviews with folks who died a few years ago, like Ralph Stanley and Merle (of course). Like the Scorsese Dylan neo-doc, it kind of tips its hand about how long these things have been in the works.

The word first got out they were working on this in 2015, and I assume they'd already been putting it together for a while before that.

love how much Merle has been in it already

I'm an episode ahead of the broadcast schedule, but GODDAMN Patsy Cline was made of magic and I just got a little teary.

meanwhile, on normal schedule: they could do a whole series just of Bill Monroe stories

they could do a whole episode just on Audrey Williams and another episode on Billie Jean Williams/Horton

anyway i loved this ep

whole series just of Bill Monroe stories

“Lookin like death eatin a cracker” is a phrase I will now keep with me always

"Hoss, you ain't jivin'."

got about an hour and a half into the first ep. tbh Burns is a hard sell for me cuz I *really* hated that Jazz one, and his general style is sort of stiff imo.

This is pretty good though, very exhaustive and detailed which is always great to see. And I admit I get a little teary when Dolly and Merle and various other folks show up (no idea who that young fiddler guy is or why they give him so much screentime).

Was watching this with my wife and I asked "when are they gonna get to the goat testicles?" and she was like "wtf are you talking about", and lol 5 minutes later: goat testicles

lol

Have we talked about how Season 2 of Cocaine and Rhinestones is apparently entirely George Jones? (C&R was, before this, the most thorough and entertaining deep dive into country I've heard.)

xpost Yeah, who is that fiddler? Most/many people I recognize, but not him.

btw fyi this is my favorite Maddox Bros and Rose song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgGZCTHKLUw

xps

oh, he's the Old Crow Medicine Show guy.

i got a little bored with Episode 1 but i think that was just the subject matter. obviously i am more of a Bill Monroe / Ralph Stanley / Maddox Brothers / Hank guy, cuz i loved last night's episode.

i could listen to stories of old-time bluegrass scene pissing matches all night.

Yeah, who is that fiddler? Most/many people I recognize, but not him.

if I didn't know better I'd say he was a Bruce McCulloch character

I don't do podcasts so haven't heard the Cocaine and Rhinestones stuff but my substitute has been Mike Judge's "Tales from the Tourbus" (season 1 is all country) which appears to cover a lot of the same territory/stories

xp

and George Jones got two episodes. They are fucking hilarious of course. Esp when he starts doing his Donald Duck shit.

people can dunk on Ken Burns all they want but the visual element of his docs is extremely valuable, esp for educational purposes. the clips and photos and imagery really help a viewer to transport to another time and place. the C&R podcast is great but it's audio-only, which can be alienating for people who a) aren't particularly auditory b) don't speak English. it's great if that is what you're looking for/if you already know the background & basics of country music, but for a beginner, KB docs are quite good! (caveat: the jazz one has a number of well-documented problems and i haven't watched the entire country one yet obvs)

I like that the doc is subtitled AND has a Spanish language version on the app

and yeah who tf is that verbose fiddler!?

I posted already, it's the guy from Old Crow Medicine Show.

xpost Listen to the epic on The Judds, it's fascinating.

Have we talked about how Season 2 of Cocaine and Rhinestones is apparently entirely George Jones? (C&R was, before this, the most thorough and entertaining deep dive into country I've heard.)

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, September 18, 2019 11:25 AM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I need to listen to that. I've only heard the "Okie From Muskogee" episode, but damn, that was just one revelation after another. Hell, that one episode was better-researched than most 33 1/3rd books.

sorry
another question: why does "the guy from old crow medicine show" get such a primo spot?

Because popular? Due to that Wagon Wheel song? Also: young, photogenic?

the clips and photos and imagery really help a viewer to transport to another time and place

yeah can't deny this, the visual archival aspect is fantastic

ugh that fuckin Wagon Wheel song

I mean in one sense it's funny/somehow appropriate that their big hit is a reworking of a Dylan outtake but that's more a testament to Dylan than them imo

Wagon Wheel is why my guitar teacher refuses to sit in with our farmer's market bluegrass band.

Wonder how much that song made Dylan?

obviously the real irony is that Dylan was probably just reworking some other half-remembered folk song himself, but he was smart enough to aggressively copyright every goddamn thing he did

A la AP Carter!

Shakey, Cocaine & Rhinestones is extremely your shit. You should make an exception.

I just don't have time to listen like that, I don't have a commute and if I'm home I'm listening to music + doing other shit at the same time

I enjoyed the half dozen eps of Cocaine & Rhinestones I listened to, but when I got access to the mike judge show I never really went back.

Burns' style can be easy to eyeroll at but I enjoy the docs and find them valuable as audiovisual textbooks. Obviously he displays certain biases and blindspots but if you're a mildly critical viewer its pretty easy to see through them and still get huge amount of interesting info and context. If you dont approach them as the last word on the subject and just think "I want to mainline a lot of dry information that I didnt previously know" theyre pretty hard to argue with imho. Like yeah hes not some super edgy iconoclast but I dont really need that in a PBS doc abt country music.

that being said i always avoided the jazz one bc I always heard that one had the most problems, but I think at this point I know enough about jazz and have heard enough about the problems of the doc that I can watch it and see through the cracks

I also always see recommendations for the first season of Mike Judge’s animated Cinemax series Tales From the Tour Bus.

It’s mentioned along w/ the podcast above and more in
Writer Carl Wilson ‘s review of Burn’s show at Slate

I knew the final years of Hank Williams were bad, but the blow-by-blow details were grueling.

This series is typical Ken Burns and it's working fine for me. When the jazz series came out, I was just starting to listen to jazz, so I benefited both from his version of the history and the controversies about what was omitted and why. This time I'm starting with somewhat deeper knowledge but am still enjoying and learning from the show.

I wonder if the country industry/establishment and fans are going to push back on this series in similar ways?

the first season of Mike Judge’s animated Cinemax series Tales From the Tour Bus

the second season is fantastic too! It's just not about country.

https://slate.com/culture/2019/09/country-music-ken-burns-pbs-documentary-series-review.html

I cringed alot when they kicked off the launch concert w/Marty Stuart discussing the marriage of "White fiddle and Black banjo" before introducing a duet between Ketch Secor (Old Crow dude) and Rhiannon Giddens.

is there a t*rr*nt of this anywhere yet?

It's streaming for free on the PBS site.

is that available outside the USA?

CAD, i am seeing torrs of this online now btw

ok, will check tonight

they're like 45gig all inclusive tho!

Series is 19+ hours.

15+ hours, actually.

Belatedly coming around to country in my late 20s, it took me more than a decade to learn as much as these eight programs provide.

Also, Polk Brockman wuz robbed, although I believe he is mentioned in the accompanying book.

I'm not sure when I "came around" to country - feel like Willie Nelson and Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton were in my musical vocabulary from childhood, but there were definitely *aha* moments down the line when I dug into specific things as an adult, like when I got a randomly got a Buck Owens record from an abandoned storage locker or first heard the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" sometime in the late 90s.

xp

I just don't have time to listen like that, I don't have a commute and if I'm home I'm listening to music + doing other shit at the same time

what about listening as you fall asleep? THE PODCASTS NEED YOU SHAKEY!!