Ken Burns Country Music Documentary

[mso489]

The second installment of Ken Burns country music documentary plays on PBS tonight. I thought the first episode was excellent, many of the interviews with major country music performers. It's factual, businesslike, and fast paced. It goes on for sixteen episodes, I think it is. If you have any interest in country music, you may like this. As a child I listened to a Chicago area country music show called "Suppertime Frolic," sort of a local, weekday "Grand Ol' Opry," and made up songs of my own. As a suburban kid, I didn't follow through on that. I've never strummed anything, and did not have violin talent. But I've always enjoyed some of the genre.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I see Ken Burns mentioned on some pretty great documentaries on here, which I am grateful for. I love a good documentary, but was Ken Burns a pipe smoker? I am just curious, since it comes up in the pipe forum often.

 

[haparnold]

I don't think KB is known for pipe smoking, but his documentaries seem to be something which correlates strongly with smoking a pipe, like having a beard.

 

[mso489]

Never associated Ken Burns with the pipe. In the last four or five years, in interviews, Ken has finally assumed an adult manner of speech. I so admire this work, but it bothered me that he spoke with a sort of middle school boy's coyness into his forties. Well, he certainly got his documentary work done, so I can't quibble, but it always unnerved me. Now he speaks like an adult of appropriate age, much better.

 

[JimInks]

Hate that I missed the first episode. Hope they rerun it.

 

[jaytex1969]

I was very confused. Then I realized my brain was thinking Ken BARNES. and I was thinking to myself, "What the...?"

Carry on. puf

 

[warren]

Not toe worry Jim! PBS flogs Burns' stuff endlessly the first year of release.

 

[dino]

Jim, here's a link to Episode 1:

Country Music | “The Rub” (Beginnings – 1933) | Episode 1 | PBS

So-called “hillbilly music” reaches new listeners and launches its first stars’ careers.

www.pbs.org

 

[ssjones]

I just started Episode 1, a little slow moving, so I hope he picks up the pace.

 

[mso489]

My wife and I have gone nuts with the documentary, despite various other life circumstances. We watch it, and when they play it a second time, we watch it again. I think the hook is the music, of course, but also the stories. Neither of us are Hank Williams Junior fans, but the story around him is strong. Not everyone we would include is included, but many many figures are. Country music is a story-telling culture, and this is drawn out not just among the musicians but among the producers and staff at the studios. I feel certain this will generate a huge new wave of country music fans. My late wife took over the theater scholarship held by Emmy Lou Harris at UNC-Greensboro, and Emmy Lou showed her the ropes and gave her the story on the faculty and students, and was most helpful, though Emmy Lou dropped out to start her career, and my wife fell in love with teaching literature. Later, she taught two daughters of Mel Tillis. So there are few degrees of separation for me.

 

[mso489]

I guess I should mention, my late wife's theater scholarship was as an undergraduate, so I was far in the future,, so I never saw much less met Emmy Lou. Likewise, I never met Mel Tillis' daughters. Just interesting echoes from the past for me.

 

[oldgeezersmoker]

I am DVR’ing the series for binge watching. I suppose, through his documentary series on the Civil War where Shelby Foote was featured at such length, Ken Burns will always be associated with pipe smoking to me.

I did watch a good bit of last nights episode as well as recording it. One thing that was kind of mentioned but didn’t really come through, with all the time given to the “Outlaws” struggles with the Nashville suits, was just how much fun it was to go to shows in the 1970’s and early 1980’s. Willie, Waylon, Emmy Lou, Merle, David Allan Coe, Hank Jr.,etc., were great entertainers. And there was usually lots of smoking, some out of pipes, but mostly RYO.

 

[mso489]

Waylon Jennings visited an ill friend of mine in his last days, thanks to my friend's dynamic wife who went and made the case to Waylon himself. Waylon stopped by their little bungalow, maybe sang a few songs. I wasn't there. But it was impressive that he made the stop.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

was just how much fun it was to go to shows in the 1970’s and early 1980’s. Willie, Waylon, Emmy Lou, Merle, David Allan Coe, Hank Jr.,etc., were great entertainers. And there was usually lots of smoking, some out of pipes, but mostly RYO.

Ha ha, yeh, I bet there was some smoking...

I've caught a couple of episodes. They don't mention much about how almost every small southern town in the 70's and 80's had a parking lot pickin' and grinnin' Saturday nights. I had an uncle who ran the sound for Minnie Pearl, and she would travel from every small town P&G parking lot from Virginia to Texas. Our town would set up a truck bed stage and local guys would play along side folks like Hank Jr one weekend and maybe Andy Griffith or Roy Clark the next. But, of course Hank Jr, lived just down the street from us growing up, so... we saw lots of him... usually passed out, ha ha.

 

[ssjones]

I'm on episode Four, really enjoying it now. I had no clue that one of my favorite hymns was written by Hank William's (I Saw The Light), who was not exactly a devout religious type....

 

[ormazd]

I find my self either smiling or tearing up quite often watching this. Burns is really good at his job.

 

[lawdawg]

I loved the Ken Burns documentary series on the Civil War. I don't know anything about Ken Burns or whether he smokes a pipe, but a somewhat controversial (at least among carpetbaggers and Yankees puf) southern author, Shelby Foote, is featured a lot, and there a couple of scenes where he's smoking a pipe.

 

[trubka2]

Somewhere Burns' people found a picture of Jimmie Rodgers smoking a pipe (I can't find it online), so he can be added to the List of Pipe Smoking Geniuses.

 

[logs]

I appreciated Burns' Vietnam series quite a bit and am looking forward to viewing this new one.

Incidentally, anyone watch the documentary series WILD WILD COUNTRY last year?

 

[krizzose]

Incidentally, anyone watch the documentary series WILD WILD COUNTRY last year?

Yes, and it was very good. Be sure to check out the mockumentary spoof of it called “Batshit Valley” in season 3 of the series Documentary Now!