I watched the first of eight episodes last night (two hours each, Sunday - Wednesday night this week and next week), and it was brilliant. Beautifully restored and rare footage of Jimmie Rogers, the Carter Family, Deford Bailey, George D. Hay, the Bristol Session players, and many of those who were instrumental in earliest days of the fusion of fiddle and banjo, blues and mountain music, that we now call country music.
I am looking forward to every episode.
If you love country music already, check it out for the roots. But if you don't know or care for "country" music today, please also watch it -- I can already see the great care taken (as always by Ken Burns) -- and you will learn why it is such an important part of the fabric of Americana. (Heck, you might even learn something about the medicine shows and influences that made the CBJ).
Last night was the beginnings through the '20s. Tonight will focus on the '30s and '40s, featuring the development of clearchannel radio and the national barn dances that sprang up on it (The WSM Grand Ole Opry, the Wheeling Jamboree, the WLS Barn Dance, the Louisiana Hayride), etc.
It is also streaming on www.pbs.org, so you can see it there as well as on your local PBS station.
Anyway, it was amazing last night. I would love your comments if you saw it. Learned more about Jimmie Rogers than I knew before, how he toughed it out to sing with TB, and did not let his disease keep him from singing and recording even until the end. "The Singing Brakeman," as he was known, was hugely influential ... but all of it would never have been as successful if the record producer from RCA Victor had not left New York to find music of the country, and stopped in Bristol, TM/VA, to record those musicians (including Rogers and the Carter Family and the Stonemans -- who have CBJ connection, by the way) in that famous series of Bristol sessions. Lightning in a bottle -- and it set off a slow burn that continues today.
I am looking forward to every episode.
If you love country music already, check it out for the roots. But if you don't know or care for "country" music today, please also watch it -- I can already see the great care taken (as always by Ken Burns) -- and you will learn why it is such an important part of the fabric of Americana. (Heck, you might even learn something about the medicine shows and influences that made the CBJ).
Last night was the beginnings through the '20s. Tonight will focus on the '30s and '40s, featuring the development of clearchannel radio and the national barn dances that sprang up on it (The WSM Grand Ole Opry, the Wheeling Jamboree, the WLS Barn Dance, the Louisiana Hayride), etc.
It is also streaming on www.pbs.org, so you can see it there as well as on your local PBS station.
Anyway, it was amazing last night. I would love your comments if you saw it. Learned more about Jimmie Rogers than I knew before, how he toughed it out to sing with TB, and did not let his disease keep him from singing and recording even until the end. "The Singing Brakeman," as he was known, was hugely influential ... but all of it would never have been as successful if the record producer from RCA Victor had not left New York to find music of the country, and stopped in Bristol, TM/VA, to record those musicians (including Rogers and the Carter Family and the Stonemans -- who have CBJ connection, by the way) in that famous series of Bristol sessions. Lightning in a bottle -- and it set off a slow burn that continues today.
