Can you tell that I am not in the market for this? Maybe later, but not now.
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"Country Music"
- Thread starter K6JHU
- Start date
In Dolly's case, it was during the closing credits and they could have done it.
I'm noticing that they are interrupting the closing song with a preview of the next episode. I'm guessing that once you buy the DVDs, it won't be like that on there.
My high school history used to say something like that.
I still wouldn't expect to hear the full song. It will end when the credits end. This obsessing over full songs on a Ken Burns history series is puzzling. It's not a concert special. The songs are there to give the viewer context for the narrative that is the bread and butter of the presentation. In Part 4, the narrator mentioned that Marty Robbins' "El Paso" was 4 1/2 minutes long. We heard a brief bit of the song, with commentary on how nobody thought radio would play it, then the show moved on to another topic. Were we supposed to sit through another 4 minutes of "El Paso" before the narrator was allowed to talk again?
The movie Yesterday ends with the FULL seven-minute version of "Hey Jude," the only ACTUAL Beatles song used in that movie. (Yeah, the credits roll for THAT long!)
I was a little disappointed in the documentary's treatment of the 80s and 90s. They barely mentioned bigtime acts like Conway Twitty and Alan Jackson. I think the spent more time on "Streets of Bakersfield" than they did on those two, combined. Part of this disappointment probably springs from me being personally familiar with the music starting in the 80s.
It's pretty clear that Ken Burns wanted to feature prominently the Carters and Cashes. You could probably put together a 90-minute documentary about that family from A.P. Carter through to Roseanne Cash from clips of this series. The first anecdotes in the series were from the 1930s, where the Carters launched a hillbilly gospel band, and the end was a clip of Roseanne singing at her father's funeral.
One place where it fell short was the near total omission of the gender disparity in country music. In the 1950s to 1960s, there were nearly no female performers on the Grand Ole Opry. On January 1, 1960, the total accumulation of female acts in the Opry was 15 of the 110 acts inducted over the course of the Opry's first 35 years. I think from watching the documentary, which featured several women who were fringe artists commercially (Maybelle and June Carter, for example) people might get the wrong impression that women were well represented in country music through its history.
Finally, I wonder when they actually filmed this. The program contained substantial interviews with Jean Shepherd and Merle Haggard, who both died over 3 years ago.
It's pretty clear that Ken Burns wanted to feature prominently the Carters and Cashes. You could probably put together a 90-minute documentary about that family from A.P. Carter through to Roseanne Cash from clips of this series. The first anecdotes in the series were from the 1930s, where the Carters launched a hillbilly gospel band, and the end was a clip of Roseanne singing at her father's funeral.
One place where it fell short was the near total omission of the gender disparity in country music. In the 1950s to 1960s, there were nearly no female performers on the Grand Ole Opry. On January 1, 1960, the total accumulation of female acts in the Opry was 15 of the 110 acts inducted over the course of the Opry's first 35 years. I think from watching the documentary, which featured several women who were fringe artists commercially (Maybelle and June Carter, for example) people might get the wrong impression that women were well represented in country music through its history.
Finally, I wonder when they actually filmed this. The program contained substantial interviews with Jean Shepherd and Merle Haggard, who both died over 3 years ago.
Of all female artists in country music at that time, who should they have included among their cast? Looking at Joel Whitburn's list of Top 50 artists of the 50s and 60s, I count a total of three women: Kitty Wells (the only female in the 50s) and then Loretta Lynn and Connie Smith in the 60s. That's it. The Carter Family were not having radio hits at that time. Patsy Cline was in the Opry, but she died too soon to have enough hits to qualify her for the Billboard Top 50 list. If you're the Opry, you want to sign artists who are getting airplay, not just artists to fill a gender quota. The other issue they have is they're still a regional barn dance. So their members have to live nearby to meet their performance obligations. Still, I hear a lot of complaints today about women in country, and truthfully it's not much different than it was in the 60s.
Specifically addressing your point about female performers, remember this was a time when a smaller percentage of women worked. Kitty Wells and Connie Smith both retired from performing very early in their careers to have children and become stay-at-home mothers. That was very common at the time. The men didn't have that problem.
Burns has addressed that in interviews. He started about 5 years ago. He says he just missed George Jones, who died in 2013. So that's when he started.
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I wasn't asking for more women to be included among the narrators. I feel that they over-represented women in the documentary, compared to what was actually being heard by country music listeners. They should have gone into that for just a minute or two to point out how few women prior to 1960 or 1970 had hits in country music.
Thanks.
I wasn't responding to that. I was addressing your point about the gender makeup of the Grand Ole Opry. My view is they didn't have to point out how few females there were in country music because it was obvious. It was obvious in rock & roll as well. It was obvious in many forms of music. Name all the women in the early history of jazz or the blues. I think their point was not to deal with the number of women, but rather the IMPACT those women had on the creation, development, and popularity of country music. The view I came away with was the impact of those women, from the Carters to Loretta to Minnie to Tammy to Dolly, exceeded the actual number. But yes there were few women in the workforce prior to 1970.
An excellent book! If you haven't read it I would highly recommend.
I saw the second episode. More really good music.
Gene Autry is still popular at Christmas. I found the description of what he did after the war strange. Don't start with his not being a singing cowboy in the movies any more. Start with saying he got out of the army before the war was over and resumed his career making appearances. Of course it did need to be said that he was a successful businessman.
Bob Wills was on WBRF but for some reason I don't hear songs that old any more when I tune in. In face, a lot of the 60s and 70s tunes seem to be missing, and whenever a DJ says when a song was recorded, it's now often from the 90s.
I heard Charlotte mentioned once but not WBT or The Briarhoppers. I've heard Charlotte described as a bigger center of country music than Nashville at one point.
Funny how people in Nashville still see country music as an embarrassment at this point.
I liked it when they played swing music and didn't want it to stop, but of course Ken Burns already did that. I never noticed how much influence from that style there was in Bob Wills' music. I found it surprising that country was considered the nation's music during World War II. I think whoever said that was mistaken, because it was surely big band.
I actually knew a woman like Minnie Pearl. Every time we would go to the mountains in the summer we would visit her and her husband. They had a nephew who was a minister and standup comic who told funny stories about them.
Grandpa Jones looked creepy before I knew who he was. But when they said his name I knew he was going to start looking like an old man. Of course, He went on to be on of the stars of "Hee Haw", and Minnie Pearl and Roy Acuff were a big part of that show tool. Acuff's music sounded outdated compared to the rest of what they did but now I know why everyone thought he was so good.
They'd better mention "Hee Haw" when the time comes!
I hadn't realized that prior to Bill Monroe we hadn't really heard "bluegrass" on this series. But there were some related styles played earlier because I remember Ralph Stanley being mentioned.
Gene Autry is still popular at Christmas. I found the description of what he did after the war strange. Don't start with his not being a singing cowboy in the movies any more. Start with saying he got out of the army before the war was over and resumed his career making appearances. Of course it did need to be said that he was a successful businessman.
Bob Wills was on WBRF but for some reason I don't hear songs that old any more when I tune in. In face, a lot of the 60s and 70s tunes seem to be missing, and whenever a DJ says when a song was recorded, it's now often from the 90s.
I heard Charlotte mentioned once but not WBT or The Briarhoppers. I've heard Charlotte described as a bigger center of country music than Nashville at one point.
Funny how people in Nashville still see country music as an embarrassment at this point.
I liked it when they played swing music and didn't want it to stop, but of course Ken Burns already did that. I never noticed how much influence from that style there was in Bob Wills' music. I found it surprising that country was considered the nation's music during World War II. I think whoever said that was mistaken, because it was surely big band.
I actually knew a woman like Minnie Pearl. Every time we would go to the mountains in the summer we would visit her and her husband. They had a nephew who was a minister and standup comic who told funny stories about them.
Grandpa Jones looked creepy before I knew who he was. But when they said his name I knew he was going to start looking like an old man. Of course, He went on to be on of the stars of "Hee Haw", and Minnie Pearl and Roy Acuff were a big part of that show tool. Acuff's music sounded outdated compared to the rest of what they did but now I know why everyone thought he was so good.
They'd better mention "Hee Haw" when the time comes!
I hadn't realized that prior to Bill Monroe we hadn't really heard "bluegrass" on this series. But there were some related styles played earlier because I remember Ralph Stanley being mentioned.
He got out of the army because his two years were up. He entered in 1942 when he was 35 years old, and finished in 1944, when he was 37. He was a pilot and flew a number of successful missions. But he was a bit old to be a sergeant, and he put in his time. Of course a few other celebrities were killed during that time, including Glenn Miller.
I've heard a lot of places described as a bigger center of country music than Nashville. Cincinnati was one of them, particularly because of the proximity to Kentucky. But the thing that separated Nashville from all other places was infrastructure. Sure they had their weekly barn dance, but it was bigger and better than the others. That attracted even more great musicians. Ernest Tubb could have made a great living by staying in Texas, and he might even have been able to contribute to Texas being the center of country music. But instead he went to Nashville. There already was a music publishing center in Nashville, thanks primarily to the Southern Baptist Church needing hymnals. The success of the Opry attracted non performers as well, such as Owen Bradley, who built studios for recording. Then the record labels decided to establish offices in Nashville. So Nashville had its business act together, and that never happened anywhere else. Of course there were the rich upper crust folks who made their millions from other businesses. They were embarrassed by country music. The Opry got kicked out of the War Memorial because of the tobacco chewers spitting on the carpets. But as someone in the documentary mentioned, they weren't embarrassed by the money it attracted to the city.
I'm just saying they should have done everything in order because it sounded weird the way they did it.
Overall, Burns and his crew did an excellent job with Country Music. One doesn't have to necessarily be a "fan" of the music to appreciate and respect its history and influence on popular music. 
I saw the third episode.
So Ernest Tubb couldn't sing that well and yet look how popular he became. This explains Taylor Swift.
I never knew all this about Chet Atkins, but I did know he's not necessarily considered country. That's okay. he's great.
So Hank Sr. quit drinking and he was doing fine for a while. I just wonder if there might have been ways to solve his problems other than with his wife. He needed the drugs for his back problems. But he shouldn't have been drinking along with that. It's amazing that as a live performer he did as well as he did.
It's amazing people could tell the difference between all these styles of country. With the poor recording quality of that era, it all sounded pretty much the same to me.
I never knew Bill Monroe was so hard to work with. And did I understand this right? They call it "bluegrass" because fans used the name of the band to explain the style of music they wanted rather than use his name?
How many different songs are the first rock and roll song? They didn't even include black artists. All this time I've been hearing they were doing rock and roll before anyone called it that.
The memory of "Move It On Over" that stands out in my mind is when I heard George Thorogood do it. The station in Winston-Salem NC was country, but there was speculation in the newspaper (the Internet didn't have such discussions yet, except maybe among nerds) about how it was going to solve its problems by sounding different from the very popular competing station. It appeared that a "rocking" country format was most likely, and after the change, George Thorogood was the first artist I heard. I assumed that the prediction was right. Except it wasn't country. It was alternative rock. The classic rock station had been criticized for years for not playing new music. So this was the obvious solution.
So Ernest Tubb couldn't sing that well and yet look how popular he became. This explains Taylor Swift.
I never knew all this about Chet Atkins, but I did know he's not necessarily considered country. That's okay. he's great.
So Hank Sr. quit drinking and he was doing fine for a while. I just wonder if there might have been ways to solve his problems other than with his wife. He needed the drugs for his back problems. But he shouldn't have been drinking along with that. It's amazing that as a live performer he did as well as he did.
It's amazing people could tell the difference between all these styles of country. With the poor recording quality of that era, it all sounded pretty much the same to me.
I never knew Bill Monroe was so hard to work with. And did I understand this right? They call it "bluegrass" because fans used the name of the band to explain the style of music they wanted rather than use his name?
How many different songs are the first rock and roll song? They didn't even include black artists. All this time I've been hearing they were doing rock and roll before anyone called it that.
The memory of "Move It On Over" that stands out in my mind is when I heard George Thorogood do it. The station in Winston-Salem NC was country, but there was speculation in the newspaper (the Internet didn't have such discussions yet, except maybe among nerds) about how it was going to solve its problems by sounding different from the very popular competing station. It appeared that a "rocking" country format was most likely, and after the change, George Thorogood was the first artist I heard. I assumed that the prediction was right. Except it wasn't country. It was alternative rock. The classic rock station had been criticized for years for not playing new music. So this was the obvious solution.
Hank Jr. made an interesting point about that song, saying how similar it was to Rock Around The Clock, a song that came out 7 years later. However, musicologists have also said that Move It On Over was based on the Kansas City Blues and several other songs from the 30s. I was speaking with a lawyer who specializes in music copyright a few weeks ago, who told me how common all this was at the time. The Ken Burns special pointed out that Woody Guthrie used a Carter Family melody for This Land Is Your Land. There was the story of how A.P. Cater would drive around looking for songs to copyright under his own name. That kind of thing would lead to a lawsuit today.
There seemed to be a lot of songs mentioned in this series that had melodies based on other songs.
The next episode I will be watching is called "I Can't Stop Loving You". Which is also the name of a Ray Charles song I heard on an oldies radio station yesterday. I mean real oldies. The owner just likes the music and doesn't care about money.
That song was considered country for some reason, along with others he did. Great songs but are they really country? I guess that will be debated in the next episode.
That song was considered country for some reason, along with others he did. Great songs but are they really country? I guess that will be debated in the next episode.
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