“For over a century, country music has been a pivotal force in American culture, expressing the hopes, joys, fears and hardships of everyday people in songs lyrical, poignant and honest,” said PBS President Paula A. Kerger. “It is fitting that we have two of America’s master storytellers, Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan, tell the story on film of an art form that for generations has told America’s story in song.”
Details on Country Music [Courtesy of PBS]
Country Music will be a multi-episode series, exploring the question “What is country music?” while focusing on the biographies of the fascinating singers and songwriters who created it — from the Carter family, Jimmie Rodgers and Bob Wills to Hank Williams, Loretta Lynn, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Garth Brooks and many more — as well as the times in which they lived. Like the music itself, Country Music will tell unforgettable stories — stories of the hardships and joys shared by everyday people.
The series will trace the origins of country music in minstrel music, ballads, hymns and the blues and chronicle its early years when it was called “hillbilly music,” played across the airwaves on radio station “barn dances.” It will explore how the Hollywood B movies instituted the fad of “singing cowboys” like Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, and how the rise of “juke joints” after World War II changed the musical style by bringing electric guitars and pedal steel guitars to the forefront.
Country Music will follow the rise of bluegrass music with Bill Monroe and note how one of country music’s offspring — rockabilly — mutated into rock and roll in Memphis. It will show how Nashville slowly became not just the mecca of country music, but “Music City USA.” All the while, it will highlight the constant tug of war between the desire to make country music as mainstream as possible and the periodic reflexes to take it back to its roots.
Source: PBS
-Posted by Rebecca Murray
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