![]() Burns has used this multi-episode approach on other American institutions and turning-point historical events: “The Civil War,” “The Vietnam War” and “Jazz.” These are subjects that merit rigor and also patience - hence the films’ length. Over and again, “Country Music” lays bare what is too often overlooked: that country music never evolved in isolation.Įach episode of this documentary tackles a different time period, from the first Fiddlin’ John Carson recordings in the 1920s up through the pop ascent of Garth Brooks in the 1990s. It goes on and on, tracing an inconvenient history for a genre that has generally been inhospitable to black performers, regardless of the successes of Charley Pride, Darius Rucker or DeFord Bailey, the first black performer on the Grand Ole Opry. ![]() And it explores how Hank Williams’s mentor was Rufus Payne, a black blues musician. Carter, a founder of the Carter Family, traveled with Lesley Riddle, a black man, to find and write down songs throughout Appalachia. ![]() And then a reminder that the banjo has its roots in West African stringed gourd instruments. ![]() But right at the beginning of “Country Music” is an acknowledgment that slave songs formed part of early country’s raw material. ![]()
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