![]() You should be listening to this other music.’” story just flabbergasted me when I connected the dots,” Duncan said. “Within that one song’s journey tells you everything you need to know about how interconnected American music is - and how silly, really, it is to try to categorize it into fenced in, totally separate categories.”Ī true exploration of country music, Duncan added, shows that within the art form, and often among the artists, there’s a desire for unity - “those songs, those melodies, those lyrics, those emotions and experiences that unite us rather than separate us,” he said, “against the backdrop of the culture that’s often saying, ‘Well no, that music’s not for you. Nearly 20 years later, in 1944, folk hero Woody Guthrie recorded the seminal “ This Land is Your Land,” which borrows its melody from those two songs. Carter borrowed its melody from a black gospel tune “ When the World’s on Fire,” which he first heard from African-American guitarist Lesley Riddle. Duncan mentioned the Carter Family’s “ Little Darling, Pal of Mine,” one of country music’s first commercial hits in 1928. And stories, “Country Music” asserts, have always been the genre’s lifeblood, long before its earliest commercialization in the 1920s and continuing on today. Of the musicians interviewed, 20 have since passed away, including country legends Merle Haggard, Jimmy Dickens and Ralph Stanley. They conducted 101 interviews - 100 of them with musicians, only one with a traditional historian - with their footage exceeding 175 hours. He, Burns and Dunfey started working on “Country Music” nearly a decade ago. “The notion that there’s a ‘pure’ country music, that is only one style for one group of people, is as obviously untrue as the notion that there’s a pure American,” Duncan said during a separate phone interview. If you misunderstand country - where it comes from, what it means, who it’s for - you might misunderstand those same things about America, too. As a result, the series challenges many of country music’s most pervasive stereotypes. In classic Burns/Duncan/Dunfey fashion, “Country Music” also weaves its subject into the fibers of American history generally. ![]() ![]() But the documentary does a lot more than that. In “Country Music,” the genre’s entire history in 20th-century America is examined over eight episodes spanning more than 16 hours total. Country music is under the microscope these days. Its release is timely: 2019 has showcased modern country’s often perplexing relationship with popular music and culture as a whole - from Kacey Musgraves’ album of the year Grammy to Lil Nas X’s chart-topping “Old Town Road” saga. ![]() “ Country Music,” the trio’s newest series, premieres Sunday, Sept. Baseball, the Civil War, Lewis and Clark, the Dust Bowl, the national parks and so much more - the scope of their documentary work is staggering. During the past 40 years, Burns and his collaborators Dayton Duncan and Julie Dunfey have become the definitive documenters of the American experience. Burns hasn’t made a documentary about metalwork, but he is well-versed in the story of America. So describes Ken Burns during a recent interview with the Deseret News. And any idea that you can remove one element or one metal, it suggests your foolishness, because you’ve just made things weaker.”
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