Ken Burns' COUNTRY MUSIC Documentary

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

Podcasts I listen to at sleep time are ones which have the right balance of interesting topic and lack of a need to pay attention. Right now the British History Podcast works. Takes me a week to get through each 30-minute episode.

xxp cheers monty

Depending on his team of consultants, I wonder how much time will be devoted to SoCal country rock a la Parsons/Eagles/etc. I'm not sure I want much of it tbh when time would be better spent covering Billy Sherrill's production work with Columbia/Epic in the early 70s and later 70s crossover stuff like Eddie Rabbitt, et al. If those things never get documented it would be a shame.

The Byrds are explicitly mentioned in the synopsis for the late-60s ep (#6).

Just realized that ep 4 (which airs tonight, but I already watched it) covered Elvis and Cash at Sun did not mention Charlie Rich even ONCE.

I'm not sure I want much of it tbh when time would be better spent covering Billy Sherrill's production work with Columbia/Epic in the early 70s and later 70s crossover stuff like Eddie Rabbitt, et al.

That's what I don't understand about these series; not enough time to cover all the important stuff? Make a longer series!

XP Rich might come up later, particularly if they get into Sherrill. He was a journeyman for years, which could get summed up in a segment in a later ep right before discussing "Behind Closed Doors" etc.

I really hope they get into Sherrill. Very interesting and weird man.

I have no doubt C&R will get into him in S2 if it really does revolve around George Jones, so if we don't get it here we'll get it there.

My Dad wasnt a big drinker but when I was little sometimes at Christmas him & his best friend would get drunk & put Johnny Cash’s “A Boy Named Sue” on the record player at full volume & sing to it at the top of their voices. He loved all the big names from the 50’s and 60’s but didnt own a ton of records though. But I absorbed the songs he got the biggest kick out of. Then as a teen I somehow decided to reject country music completely for coolness reasons, idk :( Finally in my first year of Uni I heard the Beasts of Bourbon do a cover of Hank Williams’ Ramblin Man, and their orginal, a random b-side “The day Marty Robbins Died” and the door unlocked again. I guess hearing bands I loved profess their love for country music suddenly made it ok to openly enjoy and explore country from then on.

I’ve been gently trying to convert Mr Veg into a fan - he was VERY reluctant at first & came around slowly but interestingly it was the Drive By Truckers that made him become more receptive and now he’s way more onboard. He’s watched all the Ken Burns episodes so far and has been enjoying it, which has been really great. It’s been fun being able to watch it together - if it was 10 or 15 years ago I dont think he would have.

Drive By Truckers rule, is why