re: Ken Burns - Country Music Documentary on PBS

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IIRC this young actress tragically died shortly after the film was released.

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That was also partially inspired by the lives of Jimmy Rodgers and Hank Williams.

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How are you jumping ahead in the episodes?

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I pay $5 a month to KQED to be able to stream PBS since I lost the over the air signal when I moved to the last spot I was in.

SPOILER ALERT: Not everyone considers John Denver to be an influential country legend!

Sunshine on my nutsack makes me happy.

Tonight’s episode was pretty damn good. Tonight or last night has been the best so far.

I will say this about the preview for tomorrow night. No mention of George Strait... We’re going to have a problem if they breeze through 1980’s George Strait.

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SPOILER ALERT: Not everyone considers John Denver to be an influential country legend!

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Not going to give it all away, but the one time they do mention him, it doesn't give credit to just how big he was and how much he was more country than a lot of the Countrypolitan crap. For every He Stopped Loving Her Today there is some overly polished dreck.

I like Emmylou but I thought Burns overstated her contribution a bit. Same for Rosanne Cash. He just sort of blew through Millsaps and Mandrel and no mention of Don Williams.

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Really enjoyed the Bakersfield segment. I did not know a lot about that. Too bad "Who's Gonna Mow Your Grass" didn't make it. One year too new.

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The untold talent, on this documentary, It's the interviewer. I have been watching these artists all of my life(almost 60 years) and I have never seen them tell these stories this way, and be so honest.
Because I have spent so much time, trying to learn to write songs, I have always paid special attention to what songwriters say.
Usually, they pretend to be pretty nonchalant about it( oh, that song was just something off the top of my head), but watching Willie Nelson talking about writing CRAZY, and pitching it to Patsy Cline.. I knew exactly what he meant, and was going through, he made it clear how big and scary the whole deal was.
He felt like he had a really good song, but was still nervous about how other people would think. He wanted to sit out in the car, while her husband played the tape to her. I get it. Willie telling that story, and how emotional he was... that was awesome.

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I like Emmylou but I thought Burns overstated her contribution a bit. Same for Rosanne Cash. He just sort of blew through Millsaps and Mandrel and no mention of Don Williams.

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I had no problems with Emmylou's face time but the only reason Roseanne Cash was featured was because of her last name.

And if we want to start in on omissions let's start with Jimmy Webb. As focused as they have been on country songwriters there is no excuse to forget about him. I also thought it was weird that Johnny Rodriguez was highlighted more than Glen Campbell.

It's a Ken Burns series. He's done a hundred of these and he usually focuses on some of the smaller, more interesting (to him) subjects while glossing over or omitting some obviously important figures.

He came under fire for the same thing in his Jazz series, for focusing on New Orleans and the Marsalis family. I think he tends to lean towards the best interviewees available to him and lets them dictate where he'll focus.

He's also a champion for racial minorities, specifically African Americans, so any musician who was heavily influenced by black artists will get pushed towards the front of the stage.