I know they ended with Cash dying. I’m saying I would like it to keep going. I think theres an audience out there who would watch a, say…Part 2.
I don’t have to take a college course. I have PBS and the SD.
To chime in, I believe the final episode is subtitled “1983-1996”. It doesn’t really try to be comprehensive beyond 1996 and only follows a few threads (culminating in Cash’s death) up to 2003. So any artist that emerged after the early 90’s isn’t logically going to get covered.
As said in the OP, I have always liked some country music, but often prefer other genres. I liked the series since I didn’t know the full, basic history and many of the finer points. I’m sure I still don’t, since 16.5 hours is not much, and would also like to see more.
But this can’t be the only documentary on country music. And presumably some of the others are good, and cover more modern fare. So what ones are good?
The American Experience episode The Carter Family: Will the Circle Be Unbroken is great. Lot more on them. And that page has links to similar stuff, which has links …
The influence of this family on “Country” music cannot be understated. Also, go listen to The Church in the Wildwood. One of Mrs. FtG’s favorite songs. Sure, Dolly Parton and everybody covered it, but the original has a singing style that none of the rest do.
I actually bought a 3 volume compilation of Carter Family music recently. I have a few country compilations with a few of their songs.
What I want, though, is not necessarily another documentary of the roots, although this may be fine. Is there something, say, highlighting country music after 1970 or 2000 in some detail?
This '93 CBS special “The Women of Country” might be of interest.
And here’s “The Queens of Country” from the BBC, I guess covering the Sixties and Seventies.
How about eight (?) hours of Garth Brooks & Trisha Yearwood, coming to A&E later this year?
I have never heard that version of Church in the Wildwood before; thank you so much for sharing it.
Nice!
Yeah, I’d describe everything Monroe did as country music. Bob Wills too. I can’t imagine describing either as anything but country.
I’m sure they did, but at the same time they showed what a lavish lifestyle that family was living based on this “collecting”. They should have at least given these hillbillies a few bucks after getting them to play the song for them. They were living high on the hog off of intellectual property they got very poor people to naïvely turn over to them. That just doesn’t sit right with me.
The Carter family were not rich by any account I’ve heard or read
Who knows they may have paid them a tiny amount.
That was fun to watch. I don’t recall the Ken Burns program ever mentioning Bobbie Gentry having a TV show on the Beeb or her duets with Glen Campbell.
I thought you watched this documentary, specifically the first episode. If they paid them anything, everyone talking about the “song collecting” failed to mention that part. And it showed the Carters reaping big financial rewards from the copyrights, and the women buying motorcycles and so on.
Wiki sez:
So they sold 300,000 records before he even started the “song collecting” in earnest. No further sales numbers are given, but I think it’s safe to say he ended up a lot better off financially than the people whose songs he “collected”.
So they started the 2d ep w/ a bluesy version of a Stephen Foster song. The guys I picked w/ this a.m. pretty much agreed it was an expansive definition of “country”, but enjoyable nevertheless.
How much did Aaron Copland pay the Amish for taking their hymn Simple Gifts and dropping it into Appalachian Spring?
Sad to say, the history of music is replete with people ripping off traditional folk songs and turning them into moneymakers. Feel more sorry for W.W. Fosdick and George R. Poulton, who clearly published Aura Leaduring the Civil War, and didn’t even get a mention when Love Me Tender came out in 1956.
Haven’t seen it, but I hear tell Gary Stewart got nary a mention. Any “country music” retrospective that fails to mention Gary Stewart just ain’t no part of nuthin’.
I agree with you they were ‘better’ off those people who had the songs. But rich is not how I would describe them. Again they probably justified it by saying they were saving the songs for future generations. It’s all relative.
Is he that guy with the weird vibrato voice? No mention that I’m aware of.