We knew the 8-episode, 16 1/2-hour Ken Burns documentary on country music that aired in mid September on PBS would have a significant impact and reach millions of viewers due to the popularity and prestige Ken Burns enjoys. Now we have the final tabulations on how many total viewers the film reached, and they’re quite impressive.
Something that became obvious while watching the Ken Burns documentary is a few of the egregious oversights the Country Music Hall of Fame has been a party to when it comes to its inductees. Unlike other Halls of Fame, The Country Music Hall of Fame is extremely selective of who they let in, only allowing three new members in each year.
When the Ken Burns documentary was first announced a few years ago, the hope was the film could act like a big reset button on the status of country music, and give a boost to many of the songs and artists abandoned by radio in the present day. It has been a big boon in sales and streams for many of the classic country artists featured.
Not as a rebuke of the work of the documentary, but as an addendum for those who watched and might want to dig deeper into the history of country through some of its more important personalities not represented well in the film, here are some of the Country Music film’s biggest oversights.
If you’re a country music fan and are disappointed that your favorite artist didn’t get enough screen time in the Ken Burns film on country music, well guess what, your favorite genre did, and by the most revered documentary filmmaker of our time, and before rock n’ roll, pop, the blues, soul music, or hip-hop.
The 7th Episode in the series was unique in that 30 more minutes were added to give Ken Burns and his team the time to delve into a decade of the music, explain the important influence of Texas songwriters and the emergence of the Outlaw movement in the early and mid 70’s, all while keeping up with the goings on in popular country in Nashville.
Undoubtedly, you could not tell the story of country music in the late 60’s and early 70’s without broaching the political upheaval and countercultural revolution roiling American society at the time. But the time spent on stories that were only proxies to country music bogged this episode down in stretches.
The fifth installment of the Ken Burns country music documentary zeroed in on the time period between 1964 and 1968, when the United States at large began to be embroiled in tumultuous times, and two separate epicenters in country music began to emerge. Arguably the most egalitarian of the episodes so far, it covered a lot of performers.
The fourth installment of the eight-part Ken Burns documentary on country music laid out in no uncertain terms how country music became a well-ordered business in the aftermath of the death of Hank Williams, and during the rise of rock n’ roll as the most popular genre in America, putting pressure on country music.
Even though names like Jimmie Rodgers, Roy Acuff, and The Carter Family loom large for many of country music’s devoted fans, they don’t necessarily rise to the level of household names like Ernest Tubb, and of course the great Hank Williams, who was the centerpiece of the third installment of the Ken Burns ‘Country Music’ documentary.
The first episode of the Ken Burns Country Music documentary tasked itself to define what country music is by delving deep into its origins and original purveyors. The second episode called “Hard Times” began the work of explaining why the music means so much to so many people.
Over seven years of full-time labor on the part of numerous people, over 101 interviews conducted, countless hours of archival work digging up old photographs, audio, video, and other vintage material, and an elongated year-long promotional effort finally culminated in the broadcast of the debut episode for the Ken Burns Country Music epic.
The broadcast of the Ken Burns-produced 8-part, 16-hour documentary on country music could very well be the most significant event to happen in country music in 2019, if not in the next few years. For country music to receive the expansive documentary treatment for America’s preeminent filmmaking archivist could have significant implications.
Beyond being a valuable film companion, through the work the Ken Burns team did putting together this film, they were also able to assemble all the most important information on country music, present it in story form, align it with an incredible amount of archival pictures, and put together what very well may be the definitive country music history book.
PBS is gearing up for the release of the extensive 8 part, 16-hour Country Music Documentary starting September 15th directed by Ken Burns. And ahead of the release, PBS is trying to engage the country music public by asking people to share who their favorite country music icon is. They started by asking Miranda Lambert, Vince Gill, & Ray Benson.
Marty Stuart, who’s the documentary’s lead contributor and a staunch preservationist of country music’s history, says the new film is “like the cavalry coming.” Marty Stuart says, “The traditional end of country music sometimes gets overshadowed by the contemporary … It’s an awesome gift.”
Though it may seem like a strange pairing on the surface, remember Marty Stuart is still currently touring behind his latest record Way Out West, which tracks the lineage of country music on the West Coast from the Bakersfield Sound to the psychedelic influences of the 60’s and 70’s.
“In country music we found a love for storytelling that translates everyday experiences into universal truths that we can all identify with,” says Ken Burns. “We’re very excited to share this film with the country, in towns large and small, from one coast to the other.”
Encompassing over 16 hours across eight separate episodes, the film will include footage from 56 separate interviews with artists and historians, including interviews with 40 Country Music Hall of Famers, and a few artists who have passed away since film production was commenced.
This is all especially concerning since Country Music USA is the basis of the new Ken Burns film on country music, which will reach a much wider audience than this final chapter, and like all Ken Burns films, be referenced by many generations to come as a master work of country music history.
The 2013 Americana Music Awards once again transpired in Nashville at the historic Ryman Auditorium as part of the week-long Americana Music Conference. Delbert McClinton lead off with Hank Williams’ “Hey, Good Lookin,'” leading into MC Jim Lauderdale giving a poignant introduction that included the line, “The past matters, traditions matter, even when we explore ways to have those traditions extended and expanded.”