Country Music (Ken Burns)

[PGage]

I binged the Doc last weekend, and was surprised by how much I liked it, given that I knew little about the genre, and liked little of what I knew. I am wondering if my positive reaction was a function of my ignorance; I know more about Jazz, and a lot more about baseball, and had more issues with those docs (I am re-watching Jazz now to remember more clearly what those were). I am wondering what real country music fans thought of the show? I found it to be interesting pop history, but it did not really make me want to listen to more Country Music, aside from those on the margins that I already listen to.

It helped me that so much of the show was built around the Carter-Cash Family, and Hank Williams, since Williams and Cash are two of the few country acts I know and like. I was also pleased to see the emphasis in the later episodes on acts that I think of as only quasi Country, and are among my favorites (e.g. Willy Nelson and Emmylou Harris).

The show shed some light on the seeming authenticity fetish in country music (here my main information comes from Blake Shelton on The Voice). I have been wondering for some years why he makes such a big deal about being “real country blah blah blah” but now I gather this is more a counter to the pop crossover pressure than an attack on non-country artists. But it raised another question - Shelton seems to often use Patsy Cline and Loretta Lyn as hallmarks of the classic country music sound when evaluating female country singers on the show, yet the Burn’s doc seems to tell us that Cline and Lyn are products of the “Nashville Sound”, which I understood to be a more orchestrated pop crossover sound than original, twangy Country. Shouldn’t that make Cline (whose voice I actually love) and Lyn *less* authentic?

My main disappointment with the show was how Burns seemed to soft peddle the racial, and often, racist, associations in Country Music. The main thesis of the show is that Country Music is about nostalgia; left unsaid is that much of that nostalgia in the 1920s and 30s was for the antebellum South, and since the 1960s for a pre Civil Rights era when the South could be what it wanted to be without interference from the federal government. I’m not saying Country Music is racist, or that most fans of Country Music are racist, but I do think part of its roots are in this racist soil, and Burns only lightly and infrequently touches on it.

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[Melissa P]

You do know that Lifetime has a biopic, "Patsy and Loretta"?

Both were anything but "orchestrated pop crossover."  Their songs are classic country.  BTW Lynn was in the audience of the recent CMA awards show, and her sister performed in the opening number.

[PGage]

No, I do not know that.  What you say about them is what I had always assumed, but seems to be in tension with this “Nashville Sound” categorization presented in the doc, which is why I ask. Still not sure what the answer is.

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[Kevin M.]

On Sat, Nov 16, 2019 at 2:10 PM PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote:

No, I do not know that.  What you say about them is what I had always assumed, but seems to be in tension with this “Nashville Sound” categorization presented in the doc, which is why I ask. Still not sure what the answer is.

It’s been my experience that the answer depends on geography. Ask somebody in Bakersfield and their answer will differ greatly than someone in Nashville... or Memphis... or Tulsa... or Canada. 

On Sat, Nov 16, 2019 at 11:05 AM Melissa P <takingup...@gmail.com> wrote:

You do know that Lifetime has a biopic, "Patsy and Loretta"?

Both were anything but "orchestrated pop crossover."  Their songs are classic country.  BTW Lynn was in the audience of the recent CMA awards show, and her sister performed in the opening number.

On Sat, Nov 16, 2019 at 1:26 PM PGage <pgagex@gmail.com> wrote:

Shelton seems to often use Patsy Cline and Loretta Lyn as hallmarks of the classic country music sound when evaluating female country singers on the show, yet the Burn’s doc seems to tell us that Cline and Lyn are products of the “Nashville Sound”, which I understood to be a more orchestrated pop crossover sound than original, twangy Country. Shouldn’t that make Cline (whose voice I actually love) and Lyn *less* authentic?

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Kevin M. (RPCV)

[Bob Jersey]

My brother Allen watched it out of order (Chapter 1 after the others) and his only gripe was the consecutivity of the thing (being in primetime multiple nights in a row, when he has to get up early for work). Country has been on radio in our area for years; dad enjoyed it, and Allen still surfs to the local station a few times a week...

B

[Diner]

I am a country fan, though I've always thought of myself as more of a fan of specific artists than of the genre as a whole. I've been a longtime fan of Buck Owens and Chet Atkins (Chet is my guitar god - I can play dozens of his songs at about half the speed!), but I know next to nothing about Waylon Jennings and Merle Haggard. But this series gave me a great education on them, and many others. And I loved that they spent so much time interviewing people like Rosanne Cash and Marty Stuart who are steeped in the music's history and can discuss it with great insight.

I tried to watch it during the first run, but after a few nights I knew I wouldn't have the time. Fortunately, one of the stations in my area was running one episode a week on Saturday afternoons, so after a couple months I caught up.

I saw the final episode last weekend, which was a month after my dad died suddenly. The last episode had a segment on the Kathy Mattea ballad "Where've You Been," which I've heard hundreds of times but never made me cry before. Then the very next segment was on ANOTHER weeper about death, Vince Gill's "Go Rest High on That Mountain." So it was a real double whammy! But stuff like that is what country does so well that no other genre can do. And Burns' documentary examined that well without wallowing in it.

[PGage]

Thanks for these reflections. I am sorry to hear about your dad, and glad some of this music was comforting for you. 

By now I am familiar with the idea that what people love about Country Music is the stories (both Burns and Blake Shelton repeat this endlessly). I respect that millions of people find that to be true, but for the most part I do not. Except for artists like Cash, and the part of Country that crosses over into Folk or “Americana” (and for me Johnny Cash is more of a folk singer than a country singer anyway) the stories in country music are ( with all due respect) kind of trite and simplistic. Still, a jazz artist I very much respect (Wynton Marsalis) is quoted frequently in the Doc praising the storytelling, and his opinion is worth a hell of a lot more than mine.

You bring up something else I really was interested in, which is the musicianship in Country music. The fiddlers, and the banjo players and the rest. This is part of what has always attracted me to bluegrass music, but I think I have been guilty of grossly under appreciating the guitar virtuosity in a lot of country music.

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[Chris Neuman]

I haven’t watched the series yet though I plan to. This conversation did however remind me of a segment of “On the Media” (WNYC show/podcast) about country music and conservatism — a pairing I/we generally accept as “‘‘twas ever thus” but apparently is not as old as I thought. It’s an Interesting listen. 

Link to the segment: 

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/how-country-music-went-conservative

Chris

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