Ken Burns' COUNTRY MUSIC Documentary

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

:D

otfm

Marty Stuart and his Barry Manilow hair and banjo is my favorite commentator.

he was born with that haircut, he gon die with that haircut

Gonna get a Honky Tonk haircut...Hey now hey now now

marty’s hair is fkn majestic

that aint a hairdo
that’s a mane

yep

we watched the live concert special from earlier this year - Marty busting out Orange Blossom Special on mandolin was fantastic, and Dwight Yoakum doing Mamas Hungry Eyes killed me.
Dunno about Larry Gatlin’s Sunday Mornin Coming Down though. i love the ~idea~ of it, but in execution is just sounded weird.

I love how Tom T. Hall sounds like an old time movie wiseguy.

Wow, did not know that ROGER MILLER discovered the Patsy Cline crash site.

Back to Charlie Rich for a sec, I sincerely hope this gets covered

https://classiccountrymusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/john-rich-735x413.jpg

Loved that willie had originally written the song “crazy” as “stupid” - it’s fun to sing it that way in retrospect.

yeah that cracked me up

...singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash (daughter of Johnny) and mandolin virtuoso Marty Stuart (former child prodigy) could moonlight as music historians. But they’re all, by definition, industry insiders. There are barely any scholars or critics offering more distanced analysis, the way they might in a Burns war doc. The 85-year-old music historian Bill C. Malone is a welcome presence, and it helps to have the black banjo player Rhiannon Giddens, who has worked to reclaim that instrument’s African American roots, but they ought to have more varied company

from Carl Wilson's article on the show in Slate

He also says:

Burns pays appropriate homage to the pivotal role of Ray Charles’ 1962 cover album of Nashville hits, Modern Sounds in Country & Western Music, while omitting that it was mostly barred from country radio.

i believe (i'm hedging here because it was in the 1980's and i was very young... could conceivably have been another daughter?) roseanne cash lived down the street from me when i grew up and she gave out full-sized candy bars for halloween. nice lady.

She would've been married to Rodney Crowell then.

ooh pitchfork takedown

He's right, but we're not the doc's intended audience: it's the usual PBS libs who love Johnny Cash because he's not cornpone. And even then the series has (thus far) avoided it. To avoid the Great Man Theory, maybe Burns should've concentrated on sounds, trends, myths, and iconography: bluegrass, Grand Ole Opry, yodeling, late '60s TV shows. It IS true that the documentary turns country into a sepia-tinged genre deserving respect instead of saying, "Uh, no, it's often tacky and racist, yet also absorbed gospel and the blues and sequins and awesome." Maybe Burns worries that his viewers can't handle complexity.

yeah the most astute criticism (and I'm only two episodes in) seems to be the "there are no villains, only heroes" line. Cuz it would be possible to walk away from this and think everyone in the country industry was an open-minded, progressive icon and that is uh definitely not true.

the racism seems to happen outside the frames and boundaries of the story - the overall racism of the country is acknowledged, but it's treated as happenstance that the first performer at the Grand Ol Opry was black also turned out to be the last one for like 50 years.

It's a tightrope, obv, because lingering on the racism will confirm the worst suspicions of skeptics who loathe the genre anyway, which re-asks the question whom the doc is for.

I will say this, the doc has kinda made me want to hunt down and listen to every single Merle Haggard album (why because I am crazy)

You should, especially his 1967-1972 and 1976-1982 runs.

I have a lot of that stuff but there's gaps

and oh look lol of course here's some old blog that has them all

it's treated as happenstance that the first performer at the Grand Ol Opry was black also turned out to be the last one for like 50 years.

That reminds me, I wonder if he'll touch on The Pointer Sisters performing there. It might be too minor a thing in the grand scheme, but it's cool to me!

I will say this, the doc has kinda made me want to hunt down and listen to every single Merle Haggard album (why because I am crazy)

― Οὖτις, Thursday, September 19, 2019 3:18 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Nothing crazy about this. Al OTMFM.

(And do not sleep on 2000's If I Could Only Fly, one of his all-time best, which is saying something.)

yeah, three of his 2000-2011 albums are among his best

looks like I'm not missing as much as I thought, a handful of things from the 70s, the Bonnie & Clyde album and the two live albums (Okie/Fightin Side of Me), and most of the stuff after Big City with the exception of a dozen songs or so

singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash (daughter of Johnny) and mandolin virtuoso Marty Stuart (former child prodigy)

And one-time band member with and, later, son in law of Johnny Cash, too, joining the company of not just Crowell but also, for a time, Nick Lowe.

Anyway, racism is a cloud that hovers over all of America's history. It is indeed a tightrope, because if you bring it up as an explicit subject for further exploration, where do you stop?

My favorite Merle Haggard story, the last time I saw him it sounded pretty bad - like, literally, it was not his fault, it was the PA or the room or something. So I went back to the soundboard hoping for something clearer, and there was this beleaguered sound guy just getting excoriated by an audience member. "Merle Haggard is an American treasure and you are making him sound terrible!" Audience guy otm, but I'm not sure the sound guy could have done much more with the shitty room.

If I Could Only Fly is an incredible album, always knocks me on my ass

Merle Haggard is an American treasure and you are making him sound terrible!

new board description

Was anyone ever named Eck aside from those that come up in this context?

I love this doc for giving me a quasi vacation to another time and place every time I sit down to watch some of it. It’s like a little daily trip to Countryville ❤️😀

yes! perfect description