Ken Burns' COUNTRY MUSIC Documentary

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!!

Haven't seen any of this, but i've not read any of the gnashing of teeth that accompanied Jazz. Is that just the nature of the respective genre audiences?

Speaking of this NGDB, I must admit I finally had to google who the (slightly) countrified Paul Kantner looking talking head was.

listening to something for content purposes while i try to fall asleep is one of the worst ideas out there for falling asleep! if i am trying to fall asleep, i am 100% not trying to pay attention to something i am trying to learn about.

i was living in nc and in my mid 20s when i started trying to teach myself about country music. the carter family was one of the first places i started and last night i got to recommend them to a student! i am enjoying this country music experience so far, and also enjoying seeing others discuss what they learned/enjoyed about it.

Is that just the nature of the respective genre audiences?
some people will always look for and find something to critique/they are usually vocal /shrug

also i forgot that i had a weird crush on vince gill at one point!

I don't think so, but to me the biggest objection with the Jazz one was its deliberate omission of huge swathes of the genre. I'm not sure if that happens in Country yet or even what would be the likeliest candidate for excision, it's a pretty cohesive genre and there aren't a ton of "controversial" offshoots (recent Lil Nas X brouhaha is something of an anomaly)

xps

xpost It's a good question. One off the cuff theory is that both country and jazz stress the importance of tradition as much as breaking with tradition, but the jazz doc perhaps leaned too heavy on tradition and too far away from the tradition of breaking with tradition, which downgraded (or denigrated?) the import of some of the more radical figures in jazz. Maybe?

It also helps that country is just easier to talk about. There are lyrics, there are simpler melodies, it's a little easier to illustrate a->b->c etc.

Vince Gill might be one of my favorite musicians whose music I never listen to.

like, the problem with Jazz was it's dismissal of vibrant, key figures with huge discographies that had a large impact on its overall direction. idk who would be analogous figures in Country. I mean, Jimmy Martin was bitter to his dying day about not being let into the Grand Ol' Opry but his importance to bluegrass is not controversial.

xp

Haven't seen any of this, but i've not read any of the gnashing of teeth that accompanied Jazz. Is that just the nature of the respective genre audiences?

― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, September 18, 2019 2:43 PM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think it's at least in part due to Burns having learned a few lessons from Jazz. iirc, he went into Jazz with little-to-no knowledge of the music (by his own admission), and sought out Stanley Crouch and Wynton Marsalis for guidance. He either didn't know or didn't care that they had a very narrow and conservative (in every sense) definition of the music, and the series reflected that (though Crouch and Marsalis are undoubtedly deeply knowledgeable about what they're knowledgeable about; it's when they expound upon what they're not knowledgeable about that problems arise).

Presumably, he cast a wider consultative net for this series, and maybe did more thorough research and fact-checking (both things being a lot easier in 2015-2018 than they were in 1997-1999).

the jazz doc perhaps leaned too heavy on tradition and too far away from the tradition of breaking with tradition, which downgraded (or denigrated?) the import of some of the more radical figures in jazz. Maybe?

not maybe, for sure. iirc wynton requires jazz to swing, so ken burns did too and reduced the free side of jazz to an afterthought (the final episode is terrible), which is clearly out of line with contemporary opinion & taste & too reliant on orthodox notions of jazz.

or what tarfumes said :)

idk who would be analogous figures in Country.

Who is the Cecil Taylor of country & western?

similarly, the Baseball series was steady when Burns had massive figures like Ruth and Robinson to focus on. He rushed through three decades in the last episode.

I've never seen the jazz doc, I only know the criticism.

Is there a good thread to talk about Jazz? I'm watching it as I make my mixes and was kind of annoyed about how it started with ROOTS -> YOUNG LIFE OF LOUIS ARMSTRONG (erm odjb, bit embarrassing, let's move on) -> HOW ABOUT MORE LOUIS ARMSTRONG? You get the impression that somehow nobody made any jazz records between 1917 and 1925.

that's Crouch and Marsalis for ya

listening to something for content purposes while i try to fall asleep is one of the worst ideas out there for falling asleep! if i am trying to fall asleep, i am 100% not trying to pay attention to something i am trying to learn about.

Totally understand this point, but idk I can't just zone out and try to fall asleep. Trying to concentrate on something when I'm beginning to feel sleepy pushes me into hypnogagia sooner.

Is there a good thread to talk about Jazz?

This one maybe?

Ken Burns Says "Jazz" 3 Billion Times (actually 2.97 bn) in Under 3.5 Minutes (Single of the year?)

Burns is def into having protagonists