Ken Burns - Country Music

                 
Director: Ken Burns
Year: 2019
Rating: 8.0
Three chords and the Truth. A definition of country music. I would add a twang. And beers, tears and the fears that we have to face about dying and living. Storytelling. I can't call myself a country music fan or even close. Sure I know and listen to some country music artists - Johnny Cash is a near God, Bob Wills and his falsetto call outs make me feel joy, Willie Nelson won me over with his album of American standards, Marty Robbins and the Streets of Laredo, Wanda Jackson and her Rockabilly guitar, Tom T Hall and a song that is among my favorites - That's How I Got to Memphis which I  heard first on the final episode of The Newsroom and then played repeatedly for days, Kitty Wells and her country heart, Tex Ritter with his gravel of a voice singing High Noon, Patsy Cline who could break your heart in a verse. A few more recent artists like Emmylou Harris, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Gillian Welch and a new discovery for me, Brandi Carlile. But I never seek out country music.




So putting in 16 hours to watch this Ken Burns documentary was a challenge I wasn't sure I wanted to meet. But I did over a few weeks and am glad I did so. It was an education to me. And the music was great. I think I have always been put off from pursuing country music not so much because of the music but by people who are fans of it. They tend to vote Republican, have a Confederate flag on their truck, pissed on long haired hippies demonstrating against the Vietnam War, tend to be racially segregated and throw out that stupid saying Love it or Leave It. Ok. A huge generalization and probably false to some degree. But it was there in my head. It is certainly not that way any more. Well maybe to some degree as the Dixie Chicks could testify to.




Country music is everywhere. Partly I think because country music is not really country music any more. I watch the Country Music Awards and think that other than the twang there isn't much difference from rock. When the song All About the Bass won best song, I thought that is the death of country music. But then country music fans may have thought the same thing when Olivia Newton-John won best Country Artist. There has always been this internal struggle within the field between artists trying to be authentic to the roots and music companies that want to smooth the rough spots. What came to be called the Nashville Sound. Take the guts out of the music. Serve it up with strings and crooners. But the authentic always returns. The documentary finishes at the end of the 1990's leaving the last 20 years out in the cold. A good decision from my perspective; the story gets less interesting as it moves up through the years and when we hit Garth Brooks in the final episode I almost went into a coma. A very nice person but the music is as smooth as cotton candy.



The documentary explores this but focuses mainly on the artists who kept breaking the boundaries but stayed honest to themselves and the music. Waylon Jennings, Cash, Merle Haggard, Roy Acuff, Buck Owens, Ernest Tubb, Chet Atkins, Bill Monroe, George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, the Carters, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton. There are great stories of perseverance and redemption behind all of them. What stuck me was that most of the artists pre-1960 all came out of poverty - dire poverty of sharecroppers and broken families. That shares a commonality with the pioneers of the blues and jazz artists. And of course these three musical legs are what makes American music. It was formed by poverty and ambition to leave it. It all starts with this music merging, borrowing from one another. I knew my blues, I knew my jazz but I didn't know country. Now I do a bit. It is a great story and this documentary tells it well for the most part. They tend to make every story sound like an origin story or Moses coming down from the Mountain but that is just a dramatic decision. Listening to Buck Owen as I write this. Act Naturally.