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What Ken Burns’ 16-Hour ‘Country Music’ Epic Leaves Out
THE WESTERNER ^ | 9/15/2019 | Frank DuBois

Posted on 09/15/2019 1:40:34 PM PDT by cowpoke

Country music has been having an identity crisis since it crawled out of the cradle. Call it diffuse or call it elastic, but it has always run on two tracks: one was rough and one was slick, one rooted in tradition, the other more modern. Think about that serendipitous August in 1927 in Bristol, Tennessee, when, two days apart, both Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family auditioned for the Victor Talking Machine Company (which would ultimately become RCA Records). Ralph Peer, the record company’s producer and talent scout, immediately signed both acts. That was a big week for country music. But Rodgers’ and the Carters’ music, while similar, drew upon dissimilar traditions. Rodgers sounded slicker, more commercial, like Tin Pan Alley injected with the blues and a yodel. The Carters were more about spirituals and traditional mountain music. But both appealed to the working class white audience that record companies were just beginning to cultivate. So who was going to fuss about stylistic differences when the records were selling? Together, over the course of a century, these two strands stitched a durable crazy quilt broad enough to accommodate Bill Monroe and Lynn Anderson, the Bakersfield sound and countrypolitan, fiddles and syrupy violins. Sometimes the two strains were at odds, and sometimes the tension between the two created works of genius. Another word for this, of course, is schizophrenic. If you want to see this study in multiple musical personalities displayed in fascinating detail, tune in to Ken Burns’ eight-part documentary on country music that debuts tonight (Sept. 15) on your local PBS affiliate. It’s not as much trashy, surreal fun as any given performance of the Grand Ole Opry or even Hee Haw, because Burns just doesn’t do trashy, but if you need a starter course in country, this is it...MORE

Keep in mind the source of this review is the left-wing Daily Beast, so you will find the usual  obligatory criticisms,  such as this on race:

...Because sometimes you get the feeling while watching Country Music that they were afraid of offending anyone. Nowhere is this more awkwardly obvious than on those occasions where the doc bumps into the subject of race. The elephant in this room is that country is white people’s music, and the African-American artists brought in to testify to the contrary, even when they say sensible things, sound woefully like tokens. Because no matter how many country songs Ray Charles sang and no matter how many No. 1 hits Charley Pride had, country is just white to the bone. The performers were white. And so were their audiences. Likewise, the often ugly conservative and sometimes downright racist impulses articulated by more than a few performers in the ’60s and ’70s are glossed over almost completely. We don’t hear a peep about Marty Robbins recording “Ain’t I Right,” a song mocking civil rights freedom marchers, or Guy Drake, whose “Welfare Cadillac” shot to No. 5 on the country charts in 1970.  

So just consider this as a reminder the series begins tonight on PBS.

I will admit I had never heard the Marty Robbins tune Ain't I Right. It turns out to be an anti-communist tune. Give it a listen:

https://youtu.be/0XxYwWg7F8I

0

Same goes for Welfare Cadillac by Guy Drake, which mocks the welfare system. Hard to say it is racist, since whites are the largest group of recipients:
Here is the Drake tune:

https://youtu.be/hq-hx73or30


TOPICS: History; Music/Entertainment
KEYWORDS: countrymusic; kenburns; tvprogram; vtltbutthurt
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To: cowpoke

Yes-— really sharp writer with his team (Jerry Salley, and Carl Jackson— both legends on their own). Fortunately recovering from leukemia last i’ve heard, and still playing.

Still at “IT”... that is... real country music.


101 posted on 09/16/2019 4:41:09 PM PDT by John S Mosby (Sic Semper Tyrannis)
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To: cowpoke

This is a great historical piece. I have seen the first 4.5 episodes. Highly recommend. If you want no mention of race music or liberal ideas, then turn off the TV and turn on the playstation.

Burns is amassing an impressive history of america and american culture when you look collectively at his works.


102 posted on 09/16/2019 4:44:49 PM PDT by morphing libertarian ( Use Comey's Report, Indict Hillary now; build Kate's wall. --- Proud Smelly Walmart Deplorable)
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To: MarvinStinson

Since when does an obvious male queer worry about “women’s control of their bodies”?

He is in NO way “neutral” not historically, certainly and not with the constant “meme” he works with... right out of Zinn’s “history” lessons.

Total disregard for the REALITY of the times he “documents” adjusted to “the tut-tut” moral relativism applied from today’s “approved attitudes”.

For family— it started with the “Civil War” (which, of course it was NOT. It was a war between organized separate groups of States who came together under a Constitution, and who had supporters on either side, about the subject of secession from the Contract. Predicated on views of the time, based on... money, and the level of industry at the time in two different cultures.) Burns—All based on the Princeton History Dept’s “view” of the entire conflict. The only saving grace was the “human reality” of what the war meant for non-combatants, including slaves and freedmen, the loss of great Americans, relatives on both sides, and the horror of the slaughter.


103 posted on 09/16/2019 4:55:25 PM PDT by John S Mosby (Sic Semper Tyrannis)
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To: MarvinStinson

Yeah— he ignored the very many Spanish heritage brave men who knew how to fight and volunteered as a way to citizenship. Incredible true stories, never discussed. The Marine Corps knows, of course. Burns has his own little bigotry on display, when he could have “dug a little deeper” to show how this was ALL Americans involved. Navy submarine veterans (those few still alive from WWII) will tell of the incredible bravery of the Filipino people, who worked closely with our UDT (SEAL predecessors) in aiding Australian and other nationality coastwatchers being inserted on enemy held islands— to radio in ship and troop movements.

My father had 2 good friends... Aussies, captured and beheaded by Japanese. He had a special affection for the Filipinos who saved his life several times— and appalled at the bigotry exhibited by REMFs who knew nothing of combat besides their own little worlds.

Do wish that Hanks in “The Pacific” had a longer series— to delve into more of the reality of the Pacific theater, and its definite Non-Western/Non-European reality of warfare— jungle. The British ought to do their own “The Pacific” for they indeed experienced the “peculiar” asian approach to combat and many other horrors. The Brits, especially agreed to the use of atomic weapons— because they knew the fanaticism of the bushido driven leadership.


104 posted on 09/16/2019 5:05:04 PM PDT by John S Mosby (Sic Semper Tyrannis)
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To: MarvinStinson

Thank you very much for your thorough review of Ken Burns— have read all of your posts and commented on some. You are dead on correct as to “who Burns is”... and who he allows himself to delude himself to be. Like he is some great documentary creator— he is not.

His work-were it not to be subsidized by federal money and the elitists cabal— would not meet the criteria a discerning public would give it, in all truth.

This “neutrality” description you give clenches it— he is a propagandist of the worst sort. Like a kind of BBC/PBS Statist apologist for his... “rice bowl” financial types, who continue a kind of “depression” WPA project in the NPR. Nixon was sooooo wrong to create this— copying yet again the Brits (like we are being pushed to copy their Natl health system disaster socialist failure).

Thank you.


105 posted on 09/16/2019 5:12:46 PM PDT by John S Mosby (Sic Semper Tyrannis)
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To: TADSLOS; TChad

Yes—— I SECOND the LMAO!!! Excellent!

Makes me think of an episode which i cannot find from the original Paul Hogan comedy series in Australia.

The bit was “On the Trail of the Wild Whino”.... done exactly like a nature documentary, complete with whispered dialogue and the “decoy sound” lure to roust the winos.... a squeaky cork in an empty wine bottle! Annnnd, they slowly raise up in an alley from under piles of trash!! Hilarious!

Closest I could find— Paul Hogan in the UK— as a “naturalist”- who finds English “wildlife” including the “rare, Pommy Public Servant”.... etc.. Dang funny!:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0O18fXpxhpk

“Conservatives in the Mist”-— that is a keeper!!


106 posted on 09/16/2019 5:48:19 PM PDT by John S Mosby (Sic Semper Tyrannis)
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To: cowpoke

Catching niblets while doing stuff around the house. Seems like I have seen some of these interviews before....


107 posted on 09/16/2019 6:13:29 PM PDT by waterhill (I Shall Remain, in spite of __________.)
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To: cowpoke

Watching ep 2. Lots of jabs at white males. Minnie Pearl had some big ol hits....old pic when she was young, kinda showwing them off.
She was an upper class interloper ala lady gaga. She were no coal miners daughter.

Getting political of course. Burns is a libtard.

I will probably watch the whole thing, just not going to binge it.


108 posted on 09/16/2019 6:48:56 PM PDT by waterhill (I Shall Remain, in spite of __________.)
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To: morphing libertarian

Yeah, I concur. Everything has to play in.....everything. I take it with salt.

Taking my time through it, cause a couple-three times, I wanted to grab a guitar or the banjo. (Guitars in every room)

I am driving the ol lady crazy.

ps: cap the A in America, please. Thank you.


109 posted on 09/16/2019 7:03:46 PM PDT by waterhill (I Shall Remain, in spite of __________.)
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To: waterhill

N-joy


110 posted on 09/16/2019 7:05:17 PM PDT by morphing libertarian ( Use Comey's Report, Indict Hillary now; build Kate's wall. --- Proud Smelly Walmart Deplorable)
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To: dfwgator

I thought Chris Gaines did :o)

111 posted on 09/16/2019 7:06:32 PM PDT by BookmanTheJanitor
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To: morphing libertarian

Burns is amassing an impressive commie colored history of america and american culture when you look collectively at his works.


112 posted on 09/16/2019 7:27:56 PM PDT by MarvinStinson
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To: MarvinStinson

Yeah, I’m on episode 7 and loving it. Maybe tomorrow I’ll go down and register as a commie who loves country music, baseball, and jazz.


113 posted on 09/16/2019 7:30:39 PM PDT by morphing libertarian ( Use Comey's Report, Indict Hillary now; build Kate's wall. --- Proud Smelly Walmart Deplorable)
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To: MarvinStinson

Well yes of course. I am expecting a documentary on Burns tansitioning into a woman any day now. Half joking.


114 posted on 09/16/2019 7:44:27 PM PDT by waterhill (I Shall Remain, in spite of __________.)
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To: waterhill

He looks a little like John Denver


115 posted on 09/16/2019 7:45:15 PM PDT by SamAdams76
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To: HonkyTonkMan

Well put.


116 posted on 09/16/2019 7:45:24 PM PDT by MarvinStinson
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To: familyop

Waylon, the softer years, lol

https://youtu.be/sC4Jc5a3nww


117 posted on 09/16/2019 7:52:21 PM PDT by waterhill (I Shall Remain, in spite of __________.)
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To: SamAdams76

Mr. Stewart, please refrain from cosmetics...


118 posted on 09/17/2019 6:18:39 PM PDT by waterhill (I Shall Remain, in spite of __________.)
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To: Alberta's Child


There are plenty of amazing young artists, you just have to get out of Nashville and KSCS and the Wolf.


- Zane Williams
- Jamey Johnson
- Corb Lund
- Buddy Brown
- Dean Brody
- Granger Smith
- Zac Brown
- Cody Johnson
- And more!
119 posted on 09/20/2019 4:47:18 PM PDT by Svartalfiar
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To: gibsonguy

Burns slandered my beloved bums, the Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1950’s. He raised the nasty, chip-on-his-shoulder Jackie Robinson to be a saint, and put down great Christian men like PeeWee Reese, Gil Hodges, Preacher Roe, etc. He made the players from the south into racist demons. Thank goodness, other books, like “The Boys of Summer”, set the record straight!


120 posted on 09/22/2019 4:55:30 PM PDT by miserare ( Indict Hillary!)
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